


Oratorio

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: Sound and Fury [6]
Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Alien Culture, Euthanasia, Insanity, Mind Rape, Multi, Plug and Play, Sensuality, Symbiotic Relationship, Tentacles, The Arena, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soundwave’s already weakened coding was stretched to its limits, his processors running hot in futile effort to make sense out of chaotic possibility.  The haze closed in as his grasp on the paths before him weakened.  All his choices were no choices at all, the shape of each future as horrifying as the last.  War would engulf all Cybertron, and its Chroniclers would burn with it.  </p><p>He retreated.  Despair ate at him like rust.  What promise, what future could there be in this dying world?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Authors’ Notes: Oratorio is set in the same universe as Giants of the Earth, but in the distant past, during the start of the Autobot/Decepticon civil war. It is the fourth story in the Soundwave-centric (all tentacles, all the time!) ‘Sound and Fury’ series, which begins with ‘Propagation’. Soundwave, once a highly-ranked academic, is part of a frameclass that over time has been deemed obsolete, and as a result both he and his cohort are now struggling to survive. 
> 
> Over the last vorn, Soundwave and company found themselves in hot water in the course of rescuing of several symbionts, and ended up leaving Iacon. They managed to create a place for themselves in the struggling Kaon Arena, only to bear witness as Lord High Protector Megatron murdered the previous Overlord of Kaon, proclaiming his defiance to both the Prime and the Senate.

Soundwave was in the middle of dealing with an inspector when the first Chroniclers at last made their way to the Kaon Arena.

Managing the recovering arena was no small task. Emergencies -- like the unexpected arrival of this very inspector -- cropped up every few cycles. Clench, the injured arena overseer, was adept enough in handling minor crises, but he tended towards two methods only: threats or bribery. And while both were useful tactics, a little subtlety could sometimes net greater rewards. Such as now.

“-- always kind of wanted to be a gladiator,” the smaller mech said, pacing alongside Soundwave as the taller carrier deftly guided him away from the hallways that had recently been converted to house a very new--and very illegal--powerlink station. The oblivious inspector’s optics were spiraled wide, his datapad held loose and forgotten in one hand.

Ever since Lord Megatron’s arrival at Kaon, in the wake of the Senate’s announcement of his crimes, the administration of the city had been paralyzed, all of the arena’s usual inspectors conspicuously absent. In the power vacuum left by the Overlord’s demise, there was none to stand against the defiant Lord High Protector. Most of the civilian administration was in a shambles, the upper echelons gone from their posts to wait out the chaos. Already Megatron had gutted one of Kaon’s towers, slain or scattered its inhabitants, and used its wealth to clear the unpaid wartime allotments of a hundred thousand veterans. Now the remainder of Kaon’s great cadres and clades were scrambling, both to survive and to win Megatron’s favor.

And yet, the Arena had somehow attracted one of the few inspectors left. At least this one was both naive and new to his post. “Entertainers, technically,” Soundwave corrected, modulating his tone as best he was able.

“Well, but it’s still dangerous, don’t you think? That last vid, where Maul played Jhiaxus in that border stand....”

“Generated sensory-file technology, improving every vorn,” Soundwave lied vaguely in a break in the young inspector’s prattling, even as he handled several software updates, a new roster, and new parts requisitions, as well as an analysis of the repair reports. He nodded at all the appropriate places in the bureaucrat’s tale. This level of manipulation was almost pathetically simple. A search of the public records, plus a little number crunching, had uncovered more about this mech’s tastes and habits than he’d probably ever meant to reveal--most particularly, his attempts at authoring vidplays. In a few breem, Soundwave predicted, the inspector’s interest would be suitably primed. Then Soundwave could casually mention that the ‘entertainers’ wanted to perform the Starsaber saga, but lacked a suitable script....

 _//Boss! Boss boss boss!//_ Ratbat’s excited comm broke into Soundwave’s orderly task-queue. With the ease of long experience, the carrier deftly caught the extra thread before it could disrupt his carefully prioritized workflow. _//--coming and it’s going to be so nice to see them all and I’ll betchya Echo doesn’t have six anymore but it’ll still be....//_ Ratbat’s thoroughly excited squeaking ran through the background of the comm.

Soundwave sent a query to Laserbeak and ran a stringsearch, then sent another ping to Maul, requesting his presence. The inspector had mentioned the dark red frontliner no less than eleven times over the past joor.

 _//Nothing showing up on the scans, Soundwave,//_ Laserbeak returned, abandoning his task to circle higher, logging into the arena’s sweeps as well as casting wide his own sensory net.

A quick check with Red Alert--who was a much happier mech now that he was allowed to monitor the comings and goings of the arena, even if Soundwave kept having to disable some of the more paranoid security measures that Red kept putting into place--confirmed Laserbeak’s initial assessment.

_//Ratbat: clarify statement. No new chroniclers spotted in the vicinity.//_

_//Well not *yet*,//_ Ratbat replied. _//But soon! Within a couple joor, for sure!//_

Conscious of the inspector next to him, Soundwave was careful not to let his surprise show. It was rare that Ratbat made such emphatic pronouncements, especially without adding in a few judicious qualifiers to allow a margin for error. The little glideframe’s unique talent was far from definitive, but when Ratbat saw something so clearly, or started acting as if it had already happened, his cohort had learned to pay attention.

Echo … the designation was familiar, but a quick memory-search revealed only a brief encounters with the other Chronicler-carrier. Echo had been a fellow academic, specializing in mathematical analysis, but their circles of acquaintance had rarely overlapped. He set another processor thread to pulling up any data he could find on Echo or his cohort, cross-referencing it against his own meager files. It was impossible to know for sure what condition the other chronicler cohort might arrive in, but any warning was better than none at all.

 _//Ratbat: check with Flipsides on current supply of energon, repairgrade, any needed parts or supplies for chronicler frametypes.//_ Which were always in short supply, unfortunately. Still, they would make do.

They had just turned another corner, Soundwave subtly steering them towards the main floor of the arena, when Maul swung around a worn pillar, a large bundle of steel support spars slung over one shoulder. _//’m *busy*, Soundwave. Whaddaya want?//_ he sent, eyeing the inspector with the usual offhand disdain most warframes had for civilians. Though Soundwave noted that he had graduated to being called by his designation, at least, instead of ‘civvie’ or ‘camera-bot’.

“Maul,” Soundwave greeted him, as if the gladiator’s presence was a happy accident. “Your arrival, timely. Soundwave: called to attend to an urgent matter. Inspector Driveline: just recounting his enjoyment of your recent role as Jhiaxus. Your assistance, would be appreciated; your insight into the workings of the arena, invaluable.” Privately, on a tightly banded channel, he added, _//Discretion, also necessary.//_

 _//Yeah, yeah, got it. This isn’t my first vorn in the arena, ya know.//_ Maul gave the inspector a nod. “Sure, I can show him around. Maybe see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, yeah?”

“Really? I mean, uh--certainly,” the inspector said, optics wide as he stared up at the much-taller frontliner, taking in the gleaming lines of heavy armor, the weapons-mounts, obviously impressed. “We definitely need to be thorough, after all.”

Maul nodded pleasantly. “Great. Inspector … Driveline, right? Let’s take a detour past the barracks; I gotta drop these off.” His commline to Soundwave stayed open. _//You are seriously gonna owe me for this one, Soundwave,//_ he sent sourly.

 _//Certainly. Maul: wishes to discuss ongoing requisitions of drone parts?//_ Soundwave inquired. Three of the frontliners had been attempting to build a clandestine pleasure drone for nearly a quarter vorn; each of them still believed his involvement with the project remained a secret. The frontliner scowled at Soundwave, but obviously had thought better of arguing--blocking off the channel, he ushered the inspector away.

Now freed of that particular obligation, Soundwave turned and made his way across the entrance archway -- he could sense Ratbat fluttering from cornice to cornice above -- and towards the arena’s main staff quarters. A line of inquiry to the rest of the cohort received a quick reply. _//Echo?//_ asked Ravage, glancing up from where Demolishor drilled a dozen prospective recruits on the hot iron sands. _//He once was second in line to head the computations wing of the Academe Mathematica, in Tarn. Zircon and Hematite lead his cohort, last I knew.//_ The bladeframe paused, then offered the threads of a few old memories. _//Both were among the sparkmodels for Ratbat.//_

Computational symbionts were not particularly common -- though they excelled at pattern recognition and remembered long strings of code and massive equations as well as any symbiont, they lacked the processor capacity to actually apply that knowledge. Their foci, accordingly, made them more dependant on their carriers than most symbionts, and they tended not to roam as widely. They were often more delicate of build. Hematite was an exception -- a hornframe, every bit as large as Ravage. Zircon was more typical; he was a flightframe variant, but his chassis had been patterned along the elegant lines of a lileth bird, rather than an argonite raptor. Both were over a hundred megavorn in experience, placing them among the oldest of symbionts. Together, they approached Laserbeak in rank.

Since issuing his message several orns ago, Soundwave had received acknowledgements and inquiries from a dozen chroniclers. Echo had not been among them. There could be many reasons for that, of course -- the carrier might be attempting to move in secret, to stay off official grids. Or perhaps the portion of Soundwave’s message containing his contact information had been corrupted by distance or transmission failures. And yet... it did not feel right to Soundwave. Academics were a cautious breed. It was unusual for a carrier to relocate their cohort based on nothing more than a single message ... although to be sure, Soundwave himself had acted before with far less information.

Two corridors from Soundwave's own quarters, a swath of chambers lay empty -- the service mecha who had once inhabited them had either been offlined in the chaos or had sought other work in the aftermath. Several of the irising hatchways and the rooms beyond were still in good repair. Soundwave chose one of the larger rooms; it would have to do. With luck, this would be far enough from Soundwave's cohort to permit another company of Chroniclers some privacy, but still close enough to keep an optic on them.

The tall carrier ducked under a cluster of steel beams which choked the next hallway. Gladiators climbed up and down the skeletal assemblage, wielding plasma torches and heavy rebar cutters as they hoisted lengths into place. Once this access hallway was fully repaired and rewired, the arena would be ready for its intended use -- the architecture perhaps not as elegant as it had once been, but at least nothing was likely to collapse on paying customers. Arena battles were due to resume soon and goods would begin flowing into the arena coffers, which would take some of the pressure off of both the arena caretakers and the gladiators both.

They were odd things to contemplate, those battles. Soundwave wasn’t sure if he would ever truly understand the coding that allowed the warframed gladiators to look forward to combat, to eagerly and viciously pit themselves against their fellow mecha, and yet still honestly mourn the deaths of their fellow combatants once the battle was done. For a chronicler, coded to survive and protect at all costs, that dichotomy was difficult to comprehend. Soundwave would kill--had killed--to protect his cohort, to defend other symbionts. But he had never mourned those deaths, had merely accepted them as necessary for survival, and moved on.

And yet, he had also never been forced to fight alongside a mech one orn, only to do his best to tear them apart the next. Perhaps that was the difference; a common bond among warriors, even those that had been reduced to fighting for nothing more than fleeting moments of glory and recognition in the darkness of the Kaon Arena.

 _//You’re brooding again, Boss,//_ Buzzsaw sent, swooping down from the upper stands as Soundwave exited the confines of the scaffolded archway. He landed on an upraised arm, and sidled downwards, climbing to his more customary perch on Soundwave’s shoulder. _//So this Echo--he’s a number-cruncher?//_ Buzzsaw resettled his wings, eyeing the scattered debris and trash that still littered the arena outskirts, as if the new carrier and his cohort might somehow be hiding behind a bit of rubble. _//Not sure how useful that’s gonna be ...//_

His cohort, Soundwave knew, still had their doubts as to the viability of their master’s plan. Taking in two more symbionts had been risky enough--though Rumble and Frenzy’s willingness to learn, their determination to prove themselves useful, had eased at least some of those fears. But Soundwave’s offer of refuge to any and all other chroniclers who made their way to the arena was beyond risky. In a very real sense, was an invitation for disaster. If Soundwave’s position ended up being usurped by another chronicler … if they couldn’t find enough space, or work, or energon, for carrier or symbiont refugees … if Soundwave couldn’t prevent the inevitable clashes of personality and protective imperatives that came with having so many carriers in close proximity … their hard-won sanctuary could come crumbling down around their ears, and Soundwave would only have himself to blame.

For once, however, practical considerations had given way to a spark-deep necessity, one that Soundwave found hard to explain, even to himself. Perhaps it was the sight of Pitch, discarded like so much refuse in that black hole, that had changed things. Or perhaps it had been something else entirely.

 _//Usefulness, still to be determined,//_ he told Buzzsaw, heading towards the well-guarded vaults that held their energon stores. It never hurt to make sure physical inventory matched up with the arena records, and would allow him opportunity to pull a basic caretaker’s ration for the new arrivals at the same time. _//Regardless, sanctuary will still be offered.//_ Soundwave would not forget what each chronicler carried, what each carrier protected, even if the rest of Cybertron no longer cared. Useful or not, no chronicler was without value.

*****

Ratbat’s prediction proved to be accurate: Echo arrived approximately 2.3 joors later that same cycle. Red Alert pinged Soundwave first with the perimeter camera outputs -- the incoming carrier was scuffed, battered, walking to the arena on his pedes instead of rolling up in an alt-mode. Soundwave could spot two symbionts: a serpentframe coiled around the carrier’s worn collar fairing, and a hornframe--Hematite, Soundwave presumed--pacing protectively at his master’s side.

Squeaking happily, Ratbat readily obeyed Soundwave's directive and hopped up the decorative molding of the arena's main entrance, to where he could get a better view. Through the glideframe's optics, Soundwave could see far more clearly -- Echo's chassis was slumped, chromophores dulled and graying at the edges of each plate. His steps were the slow, measured progress of a mech no longer able to spare the energon for anything but basic locomotion, and his focus seemed to be entirely upon what he carried, cupped close to his side. His small and cracked sensory panels were spread, as if to keep his burden hidden from prying optics.

Ratbat fell silent, and cycled up magnification lenses without being asked. Cradled with cables, Echo's burden might have been a symbiont's small frame. But it was curled so tightly in on itself that it was impossible to make out what it was.

Soundwave finished locking the energon storerooms carefully, and pinged the repairbay, warning them of potential incoming injured. Ignoring Stent's ill-tempered reply, Soundwave made his way along crate-crowded halls to the arena's main entrance. Echo had once been plated in arctic white and silver; now his nanites were dim and dingy... where any of the topcoat was any left at all. His symbionts had fared better, though not by a great deal. Judging by their condition, all of them had both fought and taken damage within the last few orn. Soundwave stilled, unable for a moment to move forward -- he'd expected injured Chroniclers might be more ready to seek sanctuary, of course, but he'd not thought....

… he hadn't imagined that it would be this bad. On his shoulder, Buzzsaw hunched in sympathy, tucking his wings tightly against his frame.

 _//You need backup over there?//_ Red Alert commed, glyphs laced with worry, and Soundwave felt him try to access the recently-repaired gun turrets.

The big carrier vented shortly. _//Negative,//_ he replied, checking to make sure the arena weapons were still locked down properly, as he stepped forward to attract the attention of the mech who had hesitated under the vast sweep of the busy archway. "Soundwave: extends greetings--" he started, then drew up short as Echo turned too sharply, staggering. He might have fallen, save for the bracing mass of Hematite. But it was the look in his optics that caught Soundwave, the reflexive panic, the way he way he pulled his small burden back and reached up as if to shield the serpentframe from Soundwave’s view. The taller carrier stilled, then said carefully, “Echo, welcome here. Facilities available; cohort, in need of repair?”

The mention of medical facilities, oddly, did not appear to reassure the pale carrier. Buzzsaw wrapped his tail a little tighter around Soundwave’s upper arm, leaning out for a better look at the... symbiont? that Echo carried. Echo’s optics followed the subtle movement. “I... I do not believe a medic could help,” he said, and his vocalizer was hoarse, staticky with disuse and low power.

Soundwave wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. Medics could repair almost anything short of a spark-chamber breach; what injuries had this cohort suffered that Echo believed could not be repaired? Still, here was not the time or place for such a discussion. They would be better served by someplace more private than the main arena gate and its curious bystanders. “Soundwave: can offer energon, private accommodations,” he said evenly, as if he dealt with exhausted, desperate carriers every orn. “Echo, willing to accept?”

The other carrier hesitated, then nodded. “That would be … most welcome,” he said. Soundwave turned, leading the way, and Echo followed almost blindly, Hematite supporting him whenever those pedes missed a step. Ratbat dropped down from his vantage point, gliding silently to his master’s other shoulder, his enthusiasm now subdued at the sight of their first visitors.

It was not far to the small room Soundwave had chosen. Recently cleaned of storage crates and other accumulated debris, two berths stood ready, one against each wall, along with other basic necessities. It was hardly palatial; two mecha could perhaps fit, if they and their cohorts got along and didn’t mind sharing. Echo did not seem to notice the lack of amenities, however. He entered without complaint, and lowered himself to one berth carefully, as if afraid his frame might fracture if he moved too quickly.

“My thanks, Soundwave,” he said hoarsely, his head still bowed. “When I received your message … it seemed like almost too much to hope that it might be real. But I--we had nowhere else to go.” He cycled a deep ventilation, the faint sound of grinding internals unmistakable in the quiet, a free hand dropping down to rest upon the hornframe’s broad, sturdy back. “This is Hematite, my First. Also with me are Zircon and Refit--” he touched the closed plates of his chassis to indicate the two docked members of his cohort, “--and Ionic.” This name apparently belonged to the serpentframe coiled around his master’s collar. The supple symbiont watched Soundwave in wary silence, with dulled optics.

Echo hesitated, then shifted his burden forward slightly, just enough for both Soundwave and the others to view it properly. “This is Transit. He … he is not a member of my cohort, but … I am responsible for him.” The symbiont did not react to either the movement or the introduction, remaining huddled in a tightly armored ball within the cradle of Echo’s limbs.

Soundwave hesitated, unsure how to address the obvious question. For a carrier to care for an unbonded symbiont was not unheard of--his own care of Nightstalker was evidence of that--but it was rare, especially in a cohort that was obviously struggling just to provide for themselves. “Soundwave’s cohort: Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Ratbat, and Flipsides.” Soundwave had insisted upon a proper courtship for Rumble and Frenzy, much to the mechkins’ impatience--and while the outcome didn’t appear to be in doubt, they still did not officially belong to him. He unsubspaced the cube of energon, and proffered it. It was solid midgrade; nothing remarkable, but adequate for consumption by almost any uninjured mecha. “Query: Transit, currently damaged?” Was the symbiont suffering from some manner of virus, or other code corruption?

Echo began to nod, then shook his helm, even as he reached up and took the cube. He moved without hesitation, though he watched Soundwave with an expression the bigger carrier could not read. Echo took the first sip, letting the energon flow through his filters, clearly checking for contaminants. Then he lifted the cube to the serpentframe coiled around his collar fairing. The small symbiont bent his head warily to the liquid, but after the first taste he swallowed rapidly, greedily.

Soundwave stepped back, and seated himself quietly on the other berth, smoothing out the edges of his field to radiate a calm warmth, rather than the concern he felt. Trying to carry four symbionts in this troubled time was difficult -- but not impossible. Soundwave had managed, even on the official allotments. Had things become so much worse in just a vorn?

From the little Soundwave could see, Transit had once been gold, perhaps with fine black lacing at the edge of each scale. He was battered and his nanites had worn thin, but no more so than any of the others. Right now, though, the symbiont was curled so tight nothing could be seen but his overlapping scales, broad tail wrapped over his head and stubby legs tucked tight. He seemed to show no interest in the energon, but flinched a little tighter when Echo looked down at him. “Transit is.... We’ve heard of you, Soundwave, from before. Heard about Ravage, of course, -- and that you... that you sometimes knew how to handle... difficult situations.” The serpentframe drew back a little from the energon, reluctantly, and Echo lowered the cube to his own mouthparts, swallowing.

Hematite, meanwhile, had folded himself down onto his underchassis, the thick grey slab plates along his back making him seem like an extension of the floor decking. His small optics gleamed as he watched Soundwave carefully. “Transit is still bonded,” the hornframe said levelly.

Ratbat and Buzzsaw exchanged uneasy looks -- the flightframe checked his laser status. _//Woah. Boss. Did he really just admit to--//_ to... *kidnapping* a symbiont? It wasn’t completely impossible -- though even over the dozens of megavorn of Buzzsaw’s existence, he’d only heard rumors of such an act a few times. To tear a symbiont away from his carrier, to keep them separate and try to prise the bond apart by force... there were probably crueler acts of sacrilege one could commit against a Chronicler, but Buzzsaw would have had a hard time naming them.

Ratbat fluffed himself unhappily. _//They wouldn’t do that,//_ he maintained grouchily, reaching across the cohort network for Ravage, only to find the bladeframe already on his way.

Despite his own best efforts, Soundwave couldn’t keep himself from bristling at that unadorned statement. He resisted the urge to command Ratbat and Buzzsaw closer, focussing instead on the other carrier. “Further explanation, required,” he said, making no effort to modulate the flatness of his tone.

Echo’s helm sagged further downward. He lowered the cube down to the floor for Hematite, refusing to look upward. “Yes … I suppose it is,” he said. He reached over as if to stroke Transit’s plating--only to stop short, his talons not quite touching as the symbiont shuddered, subtly flinching.

The hatch hissed open once more, and Ravage stalked inside. His plating was half-flared, sensory spines hackled, but the bladeframe said nothing as he settled himself at Soundwave’s side and across from the hornframe, his heavy-barbed tail lashing a slow, sinuous threat.

All three of the new arrivals watched Ravage’s entrance with varying degrees of respect and trepidation. But it was to Soundwave that Echo finally spoke. “Transit’s carrier … was a colleague of mine, once. Back in the Academe, we partnered on several large projects quite successfully--Parametric had an incisive mind, and a compelling attention to detail that served him well. We worked together for a decavorn, until new opportunities came that led us in separate directions. Time passed--and things changed for all of us, as you know.”

Echo paused, obviously searching for words. “Then, about a vorn ago, I ran into Parametric again. We had come back to Tarn, looking for some manner of appointment or allotment--anything, really. I was … desperate. He and his cohort weren’t doing much better, honestly, but … he’d heard of this project. They had made some kind of breakthrough, based off of old Quintesson tech, and were looking for mecha to volunteer for a refit.”

Soundwave shifted slightly, but did not interrupt, listening in silence.

“We looked over the data on the initial trials. It appeared promising. It would be a revolutionary leap forward in cortex architecture, if the project succeeded.” Echo looked upward, an ocean of regret and pain lapping outward in his field. “We knew it was a risk, but …. They promised us the chance to be *useful* again. A guaranteed directive, for as long as we functioned. How could we walk away from that?”

Echo looked as if he were waiting for something, some acknowledgement. Soundwave nodded, stilling the uneasy ripples in his own field.

“We... researched what would happen if it failed, of course,” Echo said, as if anxious to reassure Soundwave, to deflect some implied accusation. “We ran the numbers ourselves. It was such a small modification -- nothing like the rebuilds they offered to all of us, back when we left the Academe. This seemed like such a simple thing to install -- it wouldn’t interfere with the docks. Hard to remove, but the refit was small enough we could simply bottleneck the hardware and process around it, if it didn’t work. If it came to that. A risk, yes, but not... not such a great one.”

Unable to hold Soundwave’s unblinking stare for long, Echo looked back down, to his clasped talons, to the tight-curled ball of symbiont, unmoving beside him. “We should have focussed less on the consequences of failure... and more on those of unqualified success.” Echo shuttered his optics briefly; the calipers around one socket didn’t quite close properly, scritched faintly against the lens surface. The pale carrier queued up a handful of schematic files, tagging them for Soundwave’s review, and proffered them. “It was supposed to be an electromagnetic field reader, better than anything the psych-ops has now, with much greater resolution, and able to function at a distance.”

Soundwave scanned through the folders. The results appeared impressive, but it was the quality, the feel to the files, that set him on edge. Documents tended to be coded in particular ways, in patterns and motifs that varied with author and intended use. The numbers and layout of internal files, such as raw test results, differed from news broadcasts for public viewing, to cite a glaring example. This... felt more like propaganda than true scientific research. Carefully-prepared propaganda, to be sure, with numbers fitting together impeccably across filesystems and all the right modifiers and references in all the right places. Even a very high-processing, very precise mech might find little objectionable about this refit, might reasonably think it Primus-sent -- unless he had personally handled petabytes of scientific documents every cycle for a megavorn. Like Soundwave had.

It was hard to say what parts had been falsified or excised, if any, and harder still to determine what this meant. Military projects, especially, had all kinds of reasons for leaving parts of their trials out. But the mere fact that someone had gone to such trouble to generate these files, to groom them so carefully....

“Parametric went into the program first. They took baseline measurements, ran tests for nearly a vorn. I joined after a quarter.” Echo paused. Hematite, at his feet, nudged the cube back towards his master. The big hornframe had fueled a little, but left the rest for the carrier and his two docked symbionts. Hydraulics hissing, joints catching a little, Echo leaned down to pick up the remainder of the energon. “The fuel was good, and the work light. Not many mecha could meet the entry requirements -- they wanted not only high processor capacity, but also input bandwidth. Most scientists didn’t even have enough, and the code hackers... they mostly have allotments already, aren’t out volunteering for things like this. We both made it. They wanted to refit Parametric first.” Echo made a quiet sound, perhaps a bitter laugh.

“The installation -- it was simple, only took a few joor. I saw him after, when he was still on the medical blocks, his cohort curled around him. He wasn’t lucid, shouted at mecha who weren’t there... begged me to silence everyone, to silence them. I don’t know who. His symbionts, I think now.” The carrier paused, tilting the cube to drink. “He said the noise, the voices, they were... but even when I called the medics to disable his audials, he still screamed.” Echo finished the cube and cycled a deep vent, marginally easier this time. “I left, went back to the quarters. They gave me datasets -- we tried to help, to work out how to modulate the input. A few orn later, when he seemed calmer, they started releasing a few of Parametric’s motility blocks.”

“Things--went wrong so *fast*.” Echo’s vocalizer shook, unsteady. “Maybe if we’d had more time, we could have found a solution. Some way to mitigate the influx of data, or--or to isolate him from it. But it was too much, too fast. All that time... he hadn’t just been reading fields. Another mech in the program thought the refit made it so that Parametric was picking up the electrical charges within a mech’s cortex, allowing him to track decision-trees, programming changes. He … he could *hear* them thinking. Could hear what everyone was thinking, all the time, all the threads, all the background bits of code as well as higher processing. And … it began corrupting his own coding.”

Soundwave’s optics widened fractionally as he absorbed the implications of that. “His cohort?”

Echo nodded miserably. “They were the closest to him--wouldn’t leave him. I think maybe that made it even worse. In--at the end, Slipknot was dead, and then.... Parametric, he--” The carrier shuddered, his entire frame tremoring, and Hematite shifted, pressing his heavy horned helm hard against the side of his master’s leg. “Slipknot and Pax were extinguished. Recall had fled … and Transit--Transit was all he had left, and I knew Parametric would never let him go. Not until he was dead too. So I took him.”

The pale carrier reset his vocalizer. “He knew what I planned even before I got into the surgery facility, of course. But they weren’t letting him stand up yet, and he couldn’t.... couldn’t stop me. I got out. They tried to keep me from leaving the program, but --” he laid a hand on Hematite’s broad back, “we got past. We left the city, wandered for a while. And then, an orn later, we heard your message. That’s why... well. When Parametric gets free, he’ll look for us. That’s why we need your help, to convince Transit to unwind his bond... or to... do it for him.”

Buzzsaw shuffled his weight from taloned pede to taloned pede. _//Is he telling the truth, Boss?//_ he asked.

Ratbat squeaked quietly. _//If he is, we’d better send Transit somewhere else!//_ he said. A carrier could tell where you were from pretty much anywhere, whether you liked it or not... though distance did attenuate the signal. And Ratbat definitely, definitely didn’t want this Parametric guy showing up here.

Ravage flattened his audial arrays, glancing upward to fix Ratbat with a silent glare. _//That is Soundwave’s decision, not ours.//_ And he doubted their master would turn away a traumatized, injured symbiont, regardless of how dangerous it might be. Echo and his cohort, however …

Soundwave was silent, gauging the other carrier’s words, his desperation. “My cohort, now also in danger,” he said levelly. “Your decision, a poor reward for our generosity.”

Echo’s talons tightened on the edge of the berth. His gaze dropped to the floor. “I know. All this … it was my mistake. Mine and Parametric’s. And our symbionts are suffering for it. I just--there was no one else. Please. We will leave, if you want. But if there’s anything you can do to help Transit--” he uncurled his cables, extending his burden outward, away from the shelter of his chassis. “Then … please. He’s done nothing to deserve this. I can’t even get him to uncurl. He needs energon, repairs, but nothing I do will convince him to allow me to help.”

Soundwave tilted his helm, glancing sidelong at Ravage. His First had taught him techniques to soothe a frightened, traumatized symbiont--but he had never before tried them with one bonded to another. Nor to a symbiont so obviously brutalized by his own carrier. _//Soundwave: unwilling to break bond forcibly.//_ And courtship was a slow process, one unlikely to be anything but coercive and further damaging, given Transit’s current condition. _//Query: any other options extant?//_

Ravage turned faceted optics to the proffered golden ball of scales. After a moment he stood, stepped forward and bent his muzzle, sensory whiskers ghosting over the symbiont’s tight-curled form. The contact earned him only a subtle flinch. The field under his sensors was a muddied morass, a conflicted swirl of terrors, of grief and exhaustion that did not ease even with the touch of another symbiont. Ravage could taste the tang of corrosion, of injuries unhealing. _//I do not know what has been inflicted on him. A creator mech might be of assistance,//_ he said, running the scans he could and sharing his sensory impressions with his master. _//They sometimes employ sensory deprivation tanks, for those to whom every input has become pain.//_ There was an odd and momentary hesitation -- and then Ravage offered a memory, very muted and pared down. For a moment, the world was nothing but pain, regret, a terrible aching emptiness that should have been a carrier’s warm presence... and the thin murmur of a voice Soundwave recognized. And then warmth rose up around him, chasing away the chill of deep space, the sensation of relief flowering in every wounded part of him.

 _//I do not know of any such tanks here,//_ Ravage admitted, waiting as Soundwave surfaced from that bare sliver of experience.

Ratbat hugged his wings a little tighter around himself. He’d never been forced to change carriers. He decided then and there that he wasn’t ever going to. It didn’t feel like it would be nice at all. _//Docking is always quiet,//_ he said. _//And warm and snug like that.//_

 _//That’s not... quite the same thing, Ratbat,//_ Buzzsaw said, with a vent. Even the shadow of Ravage’s memory... there were some things symbionts rarely shared, and for good reason. Buzzsaw had more than enough of his own painful memories.

Soundwave considered, calculating. Then he reached out, talons spread. Echo’s symbionts watched as the pale carrier carefully passed his burden into Soundwave’s dark talons.

The symbiont weighed less than he should for his type, his tanks either empty or nearly so. His plating felt terribly thin under Soundwave’s talons, the elaborate scaling perhaps more decorative than functional. And he could feel the trembling, the spiking field which did not smooth, even when enrobed in the warmth of his own. Soundwave leaned forward enough to spread his remaining panels a little, focussing the electromagnetic image. Then, with great care, he began as Ravage had taught him, whispering safety and warmth over the emergency channel, stroking gently with soothing, practiced manipulations of his own field. _\--Here. I am here. Protection/sanctuary/shelter. Here.--_

For nearly a breem, nothing happened. Then the tight golden ball of Transit’s body began to relax, broad, blunt tail uncurling, small stubby claws peeking out of the bundle. A dim blue optic focussed on Soundwave, optical calipers whirring. The scaleframe was a small creature, not much larger than Ratbat, though much more compact. His helm was small and triangular with a long muzzle, his short nape capped with more scales that flowed onto his back; the smooth plating of his face and mouthparts were a scuffed black. Scaleframes were good at burrowing, and their awkward-looking claws were actually as articulated and dexterous as a mechkin’s fingers. They were sturdy and clever, but they were not meant for battle.

Echo’s optics widened. Most carriers on Cybertron knew Soundwave by reputation -- if only because of Ravage. And among statistician carriers, his unprecedented courting of Ratbat was infamous. But knowing that the big carrier had a magnetic talent with difficult symbionts was one thing -- seeing it in practice was another entirely. Hopefully, Echo watched as Soundwave quietly channeled the old glyphs that whispered a carrier’s ancient sanctuary.

Shivering, Transit twisted, unfolding to bare the thin plating of his underchassis, scales slippery-smooth in places and rasping in others as they slid against Soundwave’s palms. His ventilations were panting, too fast. And then, cringing, the symbiont slid the thin plating of his underchassis aside, baring his main hardline port and both secondary sockets, frantically abasing himself before the carrier.

Soundwave froze, shock-still, mirrored by his symbionts.

“Is he...” Echo stopped, at a loss for words.

 _//Damaged,//_ said Ravage, laying his audials flat against the plating of his helm, his words like stones in the shocked silence. _//I once witnessed... something similar. When a single symbiont was shared between several carriers. They copied the sum of his memories to their own cohorts, and then passed the symbiont to other carriers.//_

A flicker of rage crossed Soundwave’s quiet field, a tremor he could not contain. Sensing it, the symbiont in his hands desperately tried to spread his plating wider, twisting to offer up his hardline sockets, waiting to be used. A symbiont’s hardware was simple; they had few coding defenses and none at all against their own carrier. And a newly-telepathic carrier... might unmake even those thin defenses, might make his charges think anything he wanted, could corrupt their simple hardware and live within the flowing density of his symbionts’ memories. Might take, and tear, instead of waiting to receive.

And a bonded symbiont might even let him.

Soundwave discovered, then, that he was trembling too. _//Query,//_ he managed, addressing Ravage carefully. _//The one you saw. Did he recover?//_

The bladeframe watched Soundwave, the facets of his optics flickering. _//No,//_ he said simply.

Soundwave had never suffered a glitch before, but it felt as if he was undergoing one now. His carrier protocols initiated thread after thread, urges so intense he had to lock his own motivators down to keep from lashing out or cycling up his sonar cannon. Something behind his docks felt stretched-tight, aching. He drew a slow vent, feeling cool atmosphere wash over his battle-ready systems.

Talons stroking with exquisite care, Soundwave eased the symbiont into a curled position once more. The act was a difficult one, done in the face of carrier protocols that demanded he do *something*, that he stay close.

If neither carrier alone nor a fellow symbiont could offer comfort --what was left? Soundwave had none of the specialized equipment his own creator had once used, no way of giving Transit the peace and reassurance he so badly needed. Unless …

He turned to Ravage, to his ancient and wise First, uncoiling a primary cable. _//Query: will Ravage share a memory, and a carrier, for a span of time?//_ Soundwave asked, even as he showed his cohort what he intended. Docking might help stabilize Transit’s systems, repair his physical wounds. But if the symbiont could not break his bond from his former master, could not escape the horrors perpetrated upon him, even in recharge, then even that would ultimately accomplish little.

But perhaps, with Ravage’s help, Soundwave could give him distance, a space out of time in which to heal. If they worked in tandem to gift Transit with a memory of peace and tranquillity while the battered symbiont was safely docked, his physical wounds repaired … Soundwave could, he thought, loop that memory, for as many times as Transit needed. It would not last forever, of course; but perhaps, just perhaps …

*****

Tamping down on his reflexive jealousy at the idea of letting an outsider nestle down into *his* carrier’s docks, Ravage considered his master’s request. And it was a request, not a command, even though Soundwave could easily have made it so. Despite Transit’s obvious need, if Ravage refused … then Soundwave would listen. Would try another way.

This... would not be forever, Ravage knew. Only long enough for Transit to heal, to unwind the ties that bound him to Parametric. Then, the scaleframe could search out a new master, a better one. Echo would undoubtedly provide for Transit, as much as he was able. And if other carriers, other cohorts arrived, they would provide even more options for the orphaned symbiont. Still … what if Transit never recovered, could never heal, his coding too corrupted? Keeping him here, so long as he was bonded, only invited trouble. And the thought of allowing Transit to trespass on his territory, to dock so close to Soundwave’s warm, vulnerable spark, made him want to snarl, to bare his fangs and drive that pathetic, shivering little ball of an interloper away.

Ravage fixed his master with an unblinking stare. _//Do you truly wish to attempt this?//_ he asked, but could feel Soundwave’s affirmation even as he spoke. It did not surprise him; he knew his young master far too well. Ravage looked away... and then bowed his head, the leaf-blades at his nape shifting aside. _//Then let him dream this memory. Perhaps it will draw Transit back to himself.//_

There came the familiar and welcome prickle of cilia at his port, the sensation of being taken, hardwired to a far more complex frame, locking tools spiraling down to keep the connection stable. And then the vast presence of Soundwave flooded him, filling him everywhere, an mnemic latency that built within the abyssal depth of his memory well. The crystalline echoes of anamnesis spiraled up, enfolding Soundwave’s presence, and the world broke open.... into a memory that Soundwave had never before experienced.

The thread was thick with sensation, rich with haptic, visual, chemical, and auditory feeds. Three suns cast their wavelengths over the lapping, rhythmic swells of a vast lithium sea, their rays strong enough to initiate production of photosynthesis nanites on every micron of his plating. Warmth stole into every internal joint and rotor, easing aches in slow cascades of pleasure.

Primitive mechanicals rustled along the iron-sanded beach, and fled when the symbiont came too close, skittering way in simple patterns. The ease and the solitude both suited the symbiont well, for he was unfettered -- unbonded -- free of a cohort that was simply no longer suitable. Well-fueled and at rest, the symbiont stretched out across the warm sands, claws curling into the heat of the sea in languorous enjoyment. Free of duty, of obligation or a carrier’s command, there was nowhere he needed to be. Nowhere he couldn’t roam, if he wished … though at this moment, he felt no urge to be anywhere but where he was.

*****

Folded into the memory, Soundwave absorbed it, devoting an entire memory-node to that file alone. Bare factual data was not what Transit needed, and Soundwave burned every scrap of that fleeting moment of peace to his core memory, every bit of sensation, every sight and taste and sound. The data-load was massive; only the relative brevity of the memory -- just an orn or so -- even made it possible for Soundwave to archive it.

Once it was done, he unshuttered his optics, looking down at where Transit still lay curled within his hands. With aching slowness, he shifted his grip, modulating his field and stroking talon-tips along transformation seams. He was not as familiar with scaleframes as he might have wished, but the basic movements, the tiny hidden reflex-triggers were much the same, regardless of the symbiont’s frameclass. It took an effort of will to maintain his calm as Transit flinched and shuddered under each careful touch. Soundwave, however, had learned well to be patient; he encouraged each tiny movement towards transformation, quietly waited out each reflexive jolt backwards. It took the better part of a half-joor, but slowly, limb by limb, Transit folded himself into his sturdy, compact cassette-form. Unsealing the armor over his docks, Soundwave never wavered in his focus, keeping the scaleframe enfolded within his field even as he lifted him with antigravs and guided him inward, encouraging him to settle within the waiting dock.

From there, the symbiont’s own instincts took over, as Soundwave had hoped they would; making the necessary connections, linking up into his own systems. Docking an unbonded symbiont was not like welcoming his own. The connection was not as complete, oddly jarring without the bond between them to complete the circuit and assure Soundwave of the symbiont’s well-being. It had also been a long time since Soundwave had found it necessary to dock a symbiont in such poor condition; he could feel the pull on his reserves as carrier protocols tallied the damage and mustered resources to correct it. Still, the link was solid, Transit’s tiny spark pulsing steadily against his own.

Once the transfer systems -- the fuel and coolant and nanite chains -- had stabilized, Soundwave initiated a hardline link, extending just enough internal cilia threads to transfer a single memory, one slow packet at a time. Even through that faint datalink, he could feel the symbiont's ruined systems -- a tattered gouge where the remains of Parametric's firewalls should have been, layers of coding folded back unnaturally on themselves to leave the symbiont's memory well and all his higher processing just bare, painfully exposed. Soundwave sent the command to reseal his docks, and as the heavy plates of his armor slid back into place, he carefully guided Transit into Ravage’s shared memory. There was no resistance; any defenses the scaleframe might once have had against a carrier’s coercion had been long since torn apart.

Transit sank into the memory without protest, his mind embracing its sensory impressions as his own, and Soundwave carefully wove the edges of it together into a seamless whole, a loop without end. Safe within a carrier, Transit dreamed … and the originators of the dream stepped carefully, delicately away, Soundwave unwinding his connection to Ravage’s memory-well until they were distinct and apart once more.

Sending a wordless pulse of gratitude and affection to the bladeframe, Soundwave disengaged his primary cable, retracting it from Ravage’s dataport and allowing the ebony armor to slide back into place. He looked up, registering Ratbat’s unease, Buzzsaw’s muted indignation and anxiety, as well as Echo’s open astonishment. “Soundwave, Ravage: have done all that we can,” he said, feeling oddly weary. “Success, not guaranteed. The rest, now up to Transit.” He only hoped that given time, the scaleframe’s own deeply-coded need to explore and learn would bring him back out into the world again. Otherwise … he pushed that thread away, flagging it as unproductive. There was no point in devoting resources to speculate on unfavorable outcomes.

Echo stared, optics wide. "You..." he started, hesitated. He doubted his own cohort would have tolerated such an intrusion, even if he'd been strong enough to dock Transit -- even if he'd had Soundwave's very obvious skill and talent in an extremely difficult maneuver. Carriers of younger symbionts never learned such techniques at all, typically, let alone practiced them. But only Soundwave’s flightframe showed any disquiet at all, shuffling sideways and back again on his shoulder perch. Even Ravage, a bladeframe and therefore invariably jealous and possessive, seemed at ease. What strange hold did Soundwave have over his cohort?

But, in the end, did it matter? Echo had so few other options -- none at all, to be entirely precise. "I... thank you," he said. "We thank you." He looked between Ravage and Soundwave. "Is there anything I could do? To assist?" He trailed off, suddenly aware of exactly how little he had to offer -- no energon or supplies.

Soundwave turned his level regard on the other carrier. Echo had made mistakes that nearly destroyed his cohort, had brought a liability to Soundwave's. But on the other hand, once Transit was free of Parametric, he would need a carrier to court him, preferably one with the ability to do heavy statistical computation. And while Soundwave had little trouble processing the data from the arena's cameras and video drones, physically placing and coding those devices was slow, painstaking work. Those cameras might come in useful, if Parametric came for his symbiont -- or after those who had taken Transit from him. "Query," he said slowly. "Echo, your cohort... know much about gladiatorial games?"

Echo shook his helm, but straightened, squaring his frame. “No,” he said, brutally honest, meeting Soundwave’s gaze. “But tell us what you need, and we can learn.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

By the time of the arena’s opening fight, the number of carriers there had grown to five, plus more than twenty-five symbionts. Including another bladeframe, which had worried Soundwave at first -- but Glit kept solely to the repair bay, and seemed disinclined to establish a larger territory. The bladeframe was unable to handle the tools of his trade as easily as did Flipsides, but he was patient and quite experienced, and sat beside some of the younger medics, walking them step by step through every new procedure.

And with so many new recruits, those medical procedures were going to be needed. Soundwave could feel the nervousness vibrating in the fields of a dozen waiting mecha as he passed one of the access corridors. One of the more experienced gladiators, Whiplash, watched Soundwave dispassionately. His sole directive for this fight was simply to keep any of the newcomers from changing their minds. Soundwave spared him little attention, as well -- he remained far too busy checking on progress around the arena. Velocity and Timbre, both chroniclers, had been assigned to debit chits or energon from mecha seeking entrance. There weren't many -- perhaps a thousand at best, half the number who usually attended such fights. It would be some time, Soundwave knew, before the arena overcame its notoriety.

Set rigging, costuming, and lighting all appeared to be fully functioning. Red Alert pinged with a frantic report of an entrant with small non-regulation hand pistol; Soundwave moved the security specialist down his priority queue. Arena staff reported in, their check-ins overlapping, jostling for attention with reports on entrance receipts and the last minute pre-fight rearrangements among the gladiators. Symbionts glided overhead or scurried up walls, keeping optics on the crowd and camera feeds, watching for illicit weapons, monitoring the movements of arena supplies and mecha, either reporting back to their carriers or to Soundwave directly. Red Alert pinged again, asking permission to requisition optical and full-chassis screening equipment.

Soundwave handled it all easily, setting up multi-tiered threads to handle the routine matters -- and Red Alert -- even as he headed for Clench, making sure the overseer was making himself both visible and appropriately obsequious. There was almost no chance any high-ranking mecha would attend this type of bout. But that did not absolve Clench of the responsibility of promoting both the event and the featured gladiators, and reinforcing to any and all mecha with the wherewithal to attend that the Kaon Arena assured both their safety and their enjoyment.

A location-ping gave him Clench’s current positioning--the overseer’s usual pre-event spot of choice, near the best viewing platforms and in view of the main entrance to the arena. Not a poor location, but given the dearth of mecha who would be able to pay for such premium seats, not ideal either. Clench would be better served mingling with the more ordinary mecha in attendance, at least for the first few bouts, Soundwave thought, giving them the attention he normally reserved for higher-ranking mecha. Such flattery was likely to impress those attendees far more. It would also enhance Kaon’s battered reputation as the word spread from one cohort to the next that here, at least, mecha were still treated as if they were possessed of some worth, regardless of their function or lack of it. Ignoring several more high priority pings from Red Alert, Soundwave climbed a series of risers, intending to not-so-subtly encourage Clench to move to the lower stands--when a sudden hush fell over the arena. There was a moment of startled stillness, an ominous hush falling over the assembled crowds …

… and then a rising murmur, overlapping layers of tightly-banded comm-chatter, flooded the stands like a wave. There was a sudden stirring at the main gates, mecha hurrying aside--and the Lord High Protector entered the Kaon Arena.

Soundwave froze, finding himself uncharacteristically at a loss, all his careful plans derailed and teetering at the edge of the slagpit. The idea that Lord Megatron might attend an arena event was so vanishingly unlikely, it bordered on the ludicrous; he had not even thought to enter the possibility into his calculations. He suddenly found himself acutely aware of his own position, exposed and vulnerable, standing in plain sight of the main gate. If Lord Megatron was here to pass judgment, to tear down the Kaon Arena as he had the tallest of Kaon’s Towers, and mete out retribution … there was no way Soundwave could hide his involvement. Most of the arena gladiators had been warframes. Some had even served under the Lord Protector’s direct command, once. Megatron could decide to hold the arena culpable for the deaths of those gladiators, to hold Clench and Soundwave responsible ….

The Lord High Protector overtopped every mech around him by at least a head as he crossed the hot iron sands. In contrast to the slain Overlord, Megatron had no forward retinue, no wary guards, no chariot in which to lounge. He walked, striding alone and tall, immensely powerful and unbowed by the Senate’s castigation or the orders for his arrest. The mecha around him parted before the strength of that broad, silver-armored form, his plating glinting under the glaring lights of the arena. Behind him flowed a complement of warframes; through the optics of his cohort, Soundwave could pick out the markers of rank, the subtle bandings of glyphs edging their armor, the marks of old battle-scars and the unyielding resonant authority in their fields. Many of those mecha were legati; each likely had commanded--or commanded still--entire divisions of Cybertron’s warframes, from the swiftest aerial scouts to the immense gestalts and great Guardians themselves.

Between them, this force could wipe the arena and every civilian here from the very face of Cybertron. And Soundwave doubted that anyone -- certainly not the gladiators -- would lift a servo to stop them.

Somewhere in the back of Soundwave’s processor, Red Alert pinged again, angry that sixty mechanotons of living weaponry had just walked through the front gates and he wasn’t being allowed to do anything about it and if Soundwave would just let him control the turrets this *once*.... Velocity’s comm interrupted before Soundwave was tempted to send a reply the carrier hoped he’d live long enough to regret. _//Soundwave, I have a third rank dux here, trying to pay chits for eighty-four of our best seats. Do... we even have eighty-four good seats?//_

Every optic in the arena was riveted on the Lord High Protector’s progress, gladiators peering from their gated halls, service mecha craning their neckstruts as he bypassed the automated lifts. Which was fortunate, since those lifts hadn’t worked since Skywarp’s assassination attempt, and Primus, the impossible was happening -- the Lord High Protector meant to actually observe an arena battle. But why? Did he want a show -- something elaborate? Or something politically correct, without illegal moves or maiming, or....

Groups of the warframes behind Lord Megatron were breaking off, crossing the arena floor to the raised stands on either side, where they mounted the ramps that led to upper-level seating. Buzzsaw wheeled down and landed on Soundwave’s shoulder, talons scrabbling, optics narrowed. _//Their weapons are on standby. But I don’t like it.//_ He craned his neck back, checking with Laserbeak, who circled well overhead. Soundwave could sense Ravage moving to a better position, and more distantly, the subtle pings and worried rustlings of the other symbionts as they maneuvered for the best vantage points.

Soundwave, for once, wasn’t sure how to direct them -- or anyone, for that matter. The arena was not sufficiently repaired for one of the large historical dramas, and the gladiators hadn’t practiced for one anyway. And many of the smaller presentations ran the risk of offending the Lord High Protector -- anything that referenced the Prime, or the Senate, and almost none of the mechanimals were sufficiently repaired or programmed, and what if -- _//Boss,//_ Buzzsaw hissed, talons scraping at Soundwave’s armor. _//Boss!//_

Soundwave looked up -- to find the Lord High Protector approaching up the rampway with cool authority, his legati behind him. They passed close enough for Soundwave to feel the crackle-snap of the Protector’s powerful dyad field, an electrical presence that hung like a ghostly afterimage in the air. Megatron’s gaze fell on Soundwave for a moment, his scrutiny indecipherable. And then Clench hurried up.

“My Lord High Protector,” Clench started, saluting in the traditional manner of the third home infantry, though Soundwave knew perfectly well he’d been stationed with them for only a few vorn, “this is an unexpected--”

Megatron lifted a heavy-taloned hand. “A moment, Overseer,” he said, gesturing Clench aside, and turned instead to the edge of the overlook. From here, a mech had a superb view of the entire battleground, the other stands sweeping to the right and the left. They were mainly empty now, the thousand spectators or so occupying only a fraction of the space available. Both civilians and warframes alike shifted uneasily, uncertain if fleeing the arena might draw unwanted attention from Megatron’s war commanders, who took their places beside the regulars.

Megatron lifted his helm, his heavy gaze meeting frightened optics. Reflected from his platinum plating, the lights of the arena seemed harsher still, every edge cast sharply in white and shadow. “Warriors of Kaon,” he said, and his vocalizer rang with power, each glyph measured and incisive. “We gather to pay homage to your skill, your determination, and to the honor of battle. For far too long, the Senate has denied your right to pursue your purpose, has forced you to scrabble for scraps in the darkness. You need test your mettle in secret no longer -- but rather for the glory of your city, and for all of Cybertron!”

Led by half a hundred war commanders, the assembled mecha rose on their pedes, the roar of their approval building into a stand-shaking thunder. Megatron took his seat, his legati selecting places around him -- though their movements were as precise as those of any military mecha, it was clear enough that they were here for their own pleasure, and not as guards. One leaned in close, murmuring something to his commander. The corner of the Protector’s mouthplates drew up, flashing a jagged line of dentae. Megatron gestured subtly, bladed talons curling. “You may now begin, Overseer,” he rumbled.

“As you command, Lord Megatron,” Clench said hastily, and turned to Soundwave, simultaneously opening the comm channel to the gatekeepers on the arena floor. _//Send ‘em out! The Lord Protector is waiting, and if you fraggers don’t put on a good show, I’m gonna personally slag the lot of you!//_

Soundwave inclined his head silently. _//Soundwave: acknowledges.//_ He issued a flurry of carefully prepared commands, sending the assembled caretakers, gatekeepers and gladiators scurrying. The ancient, archaic iron gates rumbled open, and gladiators spilled onto the sand, falling into ranked formations. Arena fights usually began with a few brief duels or even comedic clashes with drones, but with Megatron watching... Soundwave did not dare take any chances. Accordingly, several of the arena’s most experienced warframes now stalked onto the sands, ensuring a vicious and hard-fought battle. Demolishor was one of those warframes, striding heavily at the head of his assigned company of defenders... then, as Soundwave watched, the tankframe broke rank, moving out of his assigned position.

The carrier tensed; at the edge of his sensory fields, he could sense Clench bristling, and he reflexively squelched the overseer’s indignant, sharp-edged reprimand before it could reach the wider arena band. Demolishor was a veteran, a gladiator who had proven himself in the arena vorn after vorn, and he had never before done anything like this. What was he thinking?

Demolishor moved slowly, deliberately, as if oblivious to Clench’s ire, his fellow gladiators’ trepidation. Reaching the center of the arena, he turned to face the Lord High Protector, servos and joints unfolding as he straightened to his full height. He lifted his battle-scarred helm to the center stand … and saluted the assembled mecha there. “Our lives for your honor, Lord Megatron,” he said, the arena pickups broadcasting every word clearly across the vast space of the arena, ringing against the vaults, the stands.

A shuffling among the gladiators assigned to attack, and Crasher -- a heavyweight arena favorite and no stranger to grandstanding -- stalked to stand beside Demolishor, saluting as well. “Hail, Lord Megatron!” he called, the vocalizer upon which he lavished so much attention ringing strong and clear, magnified by the arena’s speakers.

And then every gladiator was breaking ranks, walking to join the growing line of fighters, attacker standing beside defender. “Hail, Lord Megatron!” “All hail!” “Your honor!” the affirmations were a thunder through the arena. Each gladiator saluted in the manner of the battalions in which they’d fought long ago -- some with fist over the spark, some with hands stiffly at the sides, some with energon blades lifted overhelm. But all of them stood tall and proud, optics bright with a fervor Soundwave had never before seen.

The legati stirred, and then rose to their pedes as one, along with Megatron. For a moment, the Lord High Protector just looked over the assembled gladiators, as if emblazoning each mech onto his core memory. Then he lifted his own talons in the traditional return salute. And as the echoes began to fade, Megatron spoke -- a bass rumble that Soundwave could almost feel, that cut through every interference, that caught at the spark. _“Until all are one!”_

The gladiators roared their approval, and the crowd joined them, engines revving hot. The shouts shook the arena -- _all one_ , and _honor_ , and above all: _Megatron_. One by one, the legati saluted as well, in the manner of their respective battalions. And one by one, each gladiator retreated as he was dismissed, falling back into his place.

When the noise and calls began to fade and Megatron took his seat once more, Soundwave triggered the call to battle. Normally, more complex fights were prefaced by a prepared narrative, an introduction to ensure the mecha in the stands had at least a passing familiarity with the characters. This, however -- this was a battle without plot, without props or sets. This was spilled energon and the brutal struggle of mech against mech. Ten defenders -- five experienced gladiators, five raw recruits -- would try to keep their banner for as long as they could. The same number of attackers would try to take it from them. The signal went up; and the two companies of warframes closed eagerly in a swirl of fire and fury, ready to prove their worth upon the bodies of their enemies.

Soundwave watched from above, monitoring vid feeds, adjusting the drone patterns on the fly to catch the most dramatic, most visceral moments as frontliners tore into each other, tankframes pushing forward, their artillery turning the arena into a half-slagged battleground. Blasts and explosions spiraled high, their heat -- attenuated by the low-level force shields -- washing over the awed spectators. The action moved swiftly, advances turning into retreats within astroseconds, moving in ways that even the best AIs found difficult to track.

Soundwave, however, had no such difficulty. He handled the sudden spikes of data with ease, balancing and compiling the results for broadcasting to the arena and beyond. In a very real sense, this was the Kaon Arena’s rise from the ashes, its rebirth in fire--and with the Lord High Protector in attendance, Soundwave was determined that all of Kaon would be witness to it.

Still, such duties still took barely a quarter of his overall attention. The rest was trained upon Lord Megatron and his legati. Unlike Clench, Soundwave did nothing to draw attention to himself. He stayed where he was, positioned upon the verge of the viewing stand, allowing the other chroniclers, the other symbionts to be his hands and his audials, as he watched the Lord High Protector. Gauging Megatron’s motives, his happiness or displeasure, he was finding, was surprisingly difficult. Those silver faceplates, broad and heavy, seemed to naturally fall into an intimidating mask of disinterest, giving little away. Far more telling was Megatron’s stance, the minute shiftings of his frame and the narrowed focus of those crimson optics. A subtle turn of the shoulder, a flash of jagged denta as he leaned to speak to the nearest legati, indicated annoyance and displeasure, Soundwave thought. A slight lean forward, an intent, predatory look--that was interest and approbation, aimed at a particularly well-executed reversal by Maul, as the gladiator cleaved one of the luckless newcomers almost in half. The Lord Protector’s legati spoke to him and each other fairly frequently, to judge by the high-level comm bands that Soundwave could faintly detect -- perhaps that accounted for the occasional flash of intelligent, wry amusement in the Protector’s crimson optics.

The first battle ended, Maul and Demolishor’s company victorious, and the roar of the watching mecha seemed to fill the space like that of a crowd twice the size, a savage tribute to their energon-spattered favorites. Caretakers and drones both swung into action, scurrying out onto the arena to put out still-burning magnesium fires, to drag off the wounded and the deactivated, and ready the area for the next bout.

Megatron watched the activity impassively, then tilted his helm fractionally in Clench’s direction. “Overseer.”

Clench started, caught off-guard by the sudden address. He stepped forward uncertainly. “Er, yes, Lord Megatron? Is there something you--?”

“That pale frontliner. The second of the defending company’s right wing. What is his designation?”

“Er, I--” Clench’s vocalizer stuttered, the overseer obviously searching his databases. The gladiator Megatron had indicated was a newcomer to the arena, and hadn’t fought elsewhere. Laserbeak had spotted him filing the scars of a prison-brand from his plating -- not particularly unusual, for a gladiator. He spoke little, and was not a crowd favorite; it was obvious that Clench had never bothered to learn his designation. His optics flicked to Soundwave. _//Quickly, Soundwave! What is--//_

The great warframe’s optics narrowed, slightly. Again that subtle glint of amusement. Megatron lifted a bladed hand, gesturing. “I prefer my reports direct, Overseer. Soundwave.”

The tall carrier froze. Doing his best not to let his uncertainty show, he stepped forward, Buzzsaw craning his neck to watch the Lord Protector closely. “Frontliner’s designation: Deadlock,” said Soundwave, doing his best to modulate his tone. “Of Kalis.”

“The Kalis prisons,” Megatron prompted, optics narrowing in consideration.

“Affirmative, Lord Megatron,” Soundwave said.

Clench sucked in a harsh vent. “Lord Protector, I had no idea -- we will summon him at once, and --”

“Unnecessary,” said Megatron, cutting the overseer short. He nodded briefly at Soundwave in dismissal, then turned back to Clench. “The mech fought well.”

Clench hastened to agree, faceplates spread ingratiatingly, and Soundwave retreated with relief. Buzzsaw subtly brushed the side of his helm against Soundwave’s audial. _//He archived your *designation*, boss?//_ he said, awed, fairly certain he’d now seen more of Megatron than he had of any other ruler of Cybertron. Buzzsaw had lived a long time -- but Cybertron was a very big place, and its dyads didn’t tend to just... wander around talking to academics like Soundwave. Much less remember their designations.

 _//More likely, overheard designation,//_ Soundwave corrected, even as he coordinated the next round of combat -- this time, a duel between two fast frontliners. Clench had been using a tight band, but it wouldn’t surprise him if the Lord High Protector was equipped with very sophisticated decryption hardware. How much else had Megatron heard?

 _//Maybe,//_ said Buzzsaw, ruffling his plating. Decryption was one thing; detection -- which usually required more exposed sensors than the Lord Protector apparently had -- quite another.

The next few clashes went smoothly, all things considered. Soundwave and Clench had planned only a fairly short performance for the arena’s opening engagement, but with the Lord Protector here and with paying mecha streaming in during every intermission, they now scrambled to put together a few more bouts. They had no shortage for volunteers -- even injured gladiators did not want to waste the chance to perform before the optics of Megatron himself. At last, Stent’s comm broke through Soundwave’s planning threads. _//Slaggit, Chronicler -- if one more limping and half-patched mech leaves this repair bay, I am going to come up there myself and bang some helms together!//_

Soundwave cycled a careful vent, checking down the rosters of the injured and the offlined for himself. _//Negative. Stent, required in medical,//_ he returned, then reluctantly rejected all three of Clench’s proposed combats. Their luck had held -- no equipment had broken down, no customers had been injured and no gladiators extinguished; Soundwave could not justify risking everything for a few more credits. He did, however, arrange for all mecha still able to walk to take one last celebratory round of the arena floor, to thunderous shouts of approval from the stands.

*****

Less than a cycle after the show, while most of the mobile gladiators were out of the arena to get thoroughly overcharged and the service mecha were still engaged in cleanup, three crates arrived at the busy front gates. Predictably, Red Alert refused to let them be delivered; and Soundwave was forced to run interference before the security mech could have them torn apart for inspection, blown up, or worse. It was a small blessing that the mecha assigned to the delivery, both low-ranking warframes, had chosen to be amused rather than angry at Red’s attempts at interrogation, their boredom with this particular bit of courier-duty obvious.

Soundwave surveyed the crates. These were no ordinary shipping containers, despite their size; they gleamed in the light, their surfaces nearly pristine. And the arena wasn’t scheduled for a delivery of any kind for at least twelve joors. He switched his attention to the delivery mecha, who straightened under that visored gaze. “Query: nature of this delivery?”

The larger of the two couriers pinged him the authorization packets. “Our orders are to deliver these crates to three gladiator-mecha here at the arena: Demolishor, Backblast, and Deadlock.” he said. “Compliments of the Lord High Protector.”

The title startled the nearest mecha into silence, and the crates suddenly became the focus of a great many optics. Soundwave checked the authorizations; everything was in order. Not that any mech would dare to impersonate Lord Megatron’s signatory datastamp, not with the Lord Protector now in residence in Kaon. He gave them a brief nod, and opened a channel to Red Alert.

_//Crates, subject to normal phase scans only. Red Alert: has five kliks.//_

_//What?//_ Red Alert sputtered. _//But--//_

 _//4.7 kliks.//_ Red Alert was glitching less than he had been, but Soundwave was beginning to understand what the civilian authorities had meant when they had marked him as too high-strung. Only the relative usefulness of Red Alert’s paranoia--there was literally *nothing* that escaped his notice when he was allowed to monitor arena security--kept Soundwave from assigning other, more reliable mecha to perform his duties.

Still, regardless of how much Red might protest, he obeyed orders. With a last sputtering growl of his engine, the red-armored security mech scurried to his equipment, setting it up for a hasty scan.

The scans, of course, showed nothing out of the ordinary--none of the viciously clever little bits of sabotage or explosive devices that rival arenas and other disgruntled mecha had been known to send. Soundwave nodded at the two escorts as he turned to lead the way down into the depths of the arena. “Soundwave: will escort you inside.” He could have called the gladiators in question, or others on their behalf, up to the main entrance to take possession of their prizes, but this method allowed for the presence of more witnesses to the Lord High Protector’s largesse.

With a shrug, the two warframes picked up their carry-bar, and followed Soundwave. As the carrier had anticipated, mecha trailed along afterwards, thoroughly curious. While it wasn’t unheard of for a popular gladiator to receive gifts or invitations, it had become less usual over the past vorns. The Tower clades could not openly praise the performers of illegal shows, and few other mecha had the resources to do more than offer the occasional congratulatory cube. Whatever these crates contained, Soundwave doubted it was energon -- at least, he hoped it wasn’t all energon. The entire crew of gladiators would be overcharged for a dozen orn, if it was. The resultant repairs alone....

Backblast, limping heavily between the support of two other frontliners, was just leaving the barracks. His shieldmates -- one of whom he’d battled fiercely just a cycle before -- helped him drag the heavy offering back to his alcove. Soundwave contacted a serpentframe, happily exploring between the walls nearby, to access the vents and keep an optic on the gladiators and the contents of the crate, and then led the way to the repair bay.

The medical facilities were a radiating series of large chambers. Medics still worked rapidly in the expansive main bay, closest to the access hallways that led to the battlegrounds. Over the past thirty joor, they’d stabilized all of the injured, and begun finer work -- restoring limbs and frames now, rather than saving sparks. Flipsides had recently returned to assist in the effort -- he’d helped for the first fifteen joor, then sought out Soundwave for rest and refuel. Stent, as well as several of the more experienced medics, had yet to leave the repair bay.

But nearly half of the side chambers were occupied by ranks of repair cradles, accessible from a side hallway so that comings and goings did not disturb the medics. Both Demolishor and Deadlock had been injured severely enough to require the mesh and antigrav support berths. They lay just across from one another, the tankframe barely fitting in his repair sling. Deadlock was in marginally better shape, but both of the mecha were missing limbs. Their chassises crawled with small attenuated repair drones, and entire segments of their plating had been removed and piled beneath each cradle. Both of the gladiators blinked and lifted their helms at the thunk as the courier warframes lowered their last two crates down onto the ground.

One of the warframes paused beside Demolishor, the wounded tankframe. “Acknowledge here, Sergeant?” he asked, proffering the file. His tone was different, the shade and tenor of his glyphs sober, more respectful. And Soundwave had never before heard Demolishor called by his old rank.

The tankframe tilted his half-ruined helm as best he was able, optics bleary with the pain blocks. “What is it?” he growled, looking between Soundwave and the warframe who stood at attention beside the sling.

“Delivery: apparently a honorarium from the Lord High Protector,” Soundwave answered. He glanced at the nearby courier, who nodded.

“Lord Megatron ordered this to be sent to you, Sergeant, in recognition for a battle well-fought,” the warframe said, and heaved the crate in question off of the other, shoving it close enough to the repair cradle for Demolishor to reach over and key it open. The mention of the Lord High Protector had caught the attention of every nearby mecha, and a hush fell over the area as Megatron’s name seemed to hang in the air. Caught by surprise, Demolishor’s normally inscrutable faceplates, now devoid of battlemask or other concealment, could not help but show his disbelief. Obviously struggling to process this turn of events past the medical blocks, the tankframe obediently gave his acceptance-key when the warframe offered the file once more, then stared blankly at the crate, as if not sure what to do with it.

“Query: Demolishor, in need of assistance?” Soundwave prompted, when the warframe made no move to open it.

“Ah--no. No, Chronicler--I’m good.” Shaking off his surprise, the tankframe reached out with his undamaged arm, and keyed in the opening code. The crate obediently hissed open, the top and sides rising and folding back on themselves to reveal the contents. Which … appeared to be carefully-arranged armor plating, disassembled and ready for installation. The warframe courier bent over, and lifted the topmost segment with an ease that Soundwave knew he would not have been able to duplicate.

“Trithyllium armor upgrades, Sergeant,” he said, handing the piece over for Demolishor to inspect. “Looks like there’s helm, spark-chamber and frontal plating in there.” He picked up another tightly-folded part, inspected it briefly, his optics widening. “--and a new targeting  
module, as well.” The warframe handed it over, and some of the other loitering mecha, gladiators and service mecha both, crowded close to look. Underneath the clear casing, the conglomeration of tiny circuits and components gleamed like something from another world, or another time. The protometal cannulae were pristine; the part was new.

“Whoah--now there’s somethin’ I never thought I’d see,” a low-ranked gladiator said admiringly, eyeing the module and the printed specification-glyphs on the casing with no small amount of envy. “You could probably hit a twitchfly in Kalis with one’a those. Yanno, Demolishor, if you don’t want it, I can--”

“Touch it and die, slagger,” Demolishor growled, only half-joking. “So who’s the other crate for, Chronicler?”

“Final crate, to be delivered to Deadlock,” Soundwave replied. He turned and indicated the mech in question, who had been watching silently from a nearby repair cradle. The frontliner had obviously taken a bad hit from an energon blade; one leg was gone completely, and a good portion of his pelvic unit was missing, the raw edges slagged. If he was in pain, however, he didn’t show it, watching impassively as the couriers hauled the last crate over to his side of the bay.

Missing parts or no, Deadlock pushed himself over onto one side as the the courier-warframes dragged the crate close, then acknowledged and returned the file they offered to him. Once that was done, however, he seemed reluctant to go any further, as if the crate might dissolve if he touched it.

“Well, open it!” said a nearby warframe from his own repair cradle, craning his cervical cables. Deadlock looked to Demolishor, now the center of a knot of battered warframes thoroughly engaged in discussing the relative merits of three-sixteenth versus one-quarter weight trithyllium armor. Demolishor’s faceplates were turned up around the corner of his mouth, just a little. The envy of the mecha around him was almost palpable, but there was something else, too -- a glimmer of rising elation. One of the gladiators’ own had been judged, and not found wanting; one of their own was at last receiving what had been due to him for far too many megavorn. And maybe, just maybe... one of the watching gladiators here today could be next. Demolishor caught Deadlock’s gaze, and nodded, just slightly.

Deadlock keyed in the access code. The sides and top of the crate folded themselves away with a muted hydraulic hiss. Optics widened. “Looks like you’ll never be ‘disarmed’ again, ‘Lock,” laughed one gladiator, helping the courier warframe lift one of the large, clear stasis boxes out of the crate. It was a left gauntlet internal assembly, fully unfolded into a complicated maze of unstrung cables, flexing struts, and sensor chains -- and gattling gun components. Most warframes carried their own internal weapons; those expensive and complicated devices were one of the last pieces of equipment a desperate warframe might sell on the black market. They were, of course, the first things removed from mecha who had committed grievous crimes. Deadlock had been fighting with carry-weapons; only his speed and precision had won him even an entry place in the Kaon arena.

“And a railgun, too!” “Check out that laser sight...” “You’d better keep that set to quarter power, ‘Lock. Unless I’m on your side,” the gladiators laughed, helping the courier settle both new arms on the side of the berth, where Deadlock could see them easier. Even mostly disassembled, the gauntlet assemblies seemed to shine next to Deadlock’s own scuffed limbs, pitted and scarred where he’d painstakingly scrubbed the prison brands from his plating.

“Dunno that you’ll be able to recognize him, anyway. Hey, Deadlock -- better book yourself a session with Stent, sometime early in his shift before he’s amped. You’re gonna want this installation done right,” said another mech, lifting out the last piece of equipment. The small stasis box was heavily reinforced with shock absorbers. A pair of primary optical sensors floated gently in the antigrav field inside, carefully cushioned -- they were a gunner’s optics, large and complex, ringed with calibrating lenses. Like the optics of most recently-sparked warframes, they were red-filtered, to aid in spotting technorganics like the Tr!klcctch.

Deadlock drew a quiet vent as he studied the new optics. One of the gladiators leaning over him to admire the new hardware snorted. “Yeah, and you would know, Payload. Remember that time when ya had one pop out, right in the middle of --”

“Oh Primus,” groaned the frontliner. “Knew I was never gonna live that one down.”

The other gladiator was just getting started. “--went scrambling on ‘is hands and kneeplates, trying to chase after this rolling optic, just as a glassgas barrage came screamin’ by overhead...”

Soundwave looked to the two couriers. “Query, other duties, demand your attention?”

“...and then, then it fragging bounced down into the trench the Tr!klcctch were usin’ ta bring fighters forward, and this slagger went *after* it, right over the edge --”

“I couldn’t fraggin’ see!” Payload protested, as one of the couriers glanced at Soundwave and shrugged, a gesture that the carrier took for ‘no.’

 _//Grabber: will ensure that Lord Megatron’s couriers are escorted out after the celebration,//_ Soundwave addressed one of the mainly-uninjured frontliners, who returned a distracted acknowledgement. The carrier double-checked with Red Alert, ensuring that he’d be informed if the couriers didn’t leave directly, but did nothing else to intervene. The gladiators, he recognized, needed this -- had needed it for a very long time.

“--so he’s pawing around, trying to find his optic in all that fragging organic mud, when two of them bug-soldiers come tearing around the corner, going too fast to stop, and...” Alternately laughing and hushing one another -- lest the medics object to their presence -- the warframes levered themselves down onto the ground, evidently planning to stay for a while. Most of them had stories about optical replacements, about being called out to battle with just a single primary functioning, or none at all. Someone produced a cube of bootleg highgrade. “They even go with your armor, Deadlock,” one of the mecha pointed out, admiring the gleaming crimson optics. “Pit of a lot better than yer blue ones.”

Which, of course, brought up the inevitable rowdy questions of just why the gladiator was admiring Deadlock’s optics in the first place. Nor did Demolishor go unscathed -- his new frontal plating was so much smoother than the rest of his pitted, battle-scarred frame that he was sure to get a discount from the pleasuremecha, so long as they saw him only from the front ... The rough laughter and muted conversation continued, more mecha wandering in as word spread about about the windfall. Soundwave left them to it, retreating unnoticed. These gifts, small as they were, were nonetheless a priceless boon to the arena. Lured by the tantalizing possibility of patronage, the chance of attracting Lord Megatron’s eye, the arena gladiators would now fight twice as hard for recognition. And as the word spread of Megatron’s attendance, more mecha would come to watch those gladiators, to openly laud their favorites as they never had been allowed to before. Under such conditions, the Kaon Arena could thrive... and perhaps even regain some semblance of its former glory.

It would not last forever--nothing did, as Soundwave knew all too well. But for the moment, for right now, Lord Megatron’s largesse had given Soundwave the weapon he had needed to resurrect the arena, a gift that neither he nor the gladiators would soon forget: _hope._


	3. Chapter 3

The vorn wore on. Lord Megatron never returned to the arena, but the news of his attendance had jumped like lightning from cohort to cohort, from lowest slumdweller to the highest Towers-clade. The Protector’s approbation of the gladiators and his evident approval of the Kaon Arena’s bouts had also been well-noted by those in power. Megatron might have split from his Prime, had been outlawed by the Senate itself--but in Kaon, at least, none of it mattered in the slightest. He was still the Lord High Protector, one half of the axis upon which all of Cybertron turned, and in the vacuum left by the Overlord’s death, there were none left in Kaon who dared gainsay him. If he sanctioned the Kaon Arena, then no other legitimacy was needed.

The arena’s gladiators rose in prominence accordingly, their stars buoyed by the arena’s fame as crowds now flocked openly to cheer their favorites. The city-state’s civilian administration, which had quickly capitulated to Megatron’s rule, also became more accommodating; the bribes once paid to inspectors became fewer, then disappeared altogether as it became clear that the Arena had been granted Megatron’s favor, if not legal recognition. Warframes from across Cybertron traveled the broken highways to Kaon in open defiance of Senate sanctions, searching for allotments and glory, confident that the Lord High Protector would give them their due. And gradually, cautiously, even the highest-ranking mecha came out of their Towers to attend, buying up the best seats, circling warily around the gladiators and arena administrators both as they did their best to gauge their usefulness, seeking ways to ingratiate their clades with their new lord.

Beyond Kaon, the moves that were being made were entirely predictable--at least to one who knew history as Soundwave did. While never before had a Lord Protector so completely defied his Prime--or a reigning Prime so spurned his Lord Protector, depending upon one’s perspective--the Senate’s actions in response to Megatron’s defection had been nothing if not typical.

First came the rhetoric, the announcement of the charges levied against Megatron for his killing of the Overlord and the destruction his attack had caused, the demands that he surrender to Cybertronian justice. Then, as Megatron continued his open defiance of Senatorial authority, came the condemnations, the calls to the rest of Cybertron to turn against their former Lord High Protector and make him an outlaw in truth. Accustomed to obeying their Prime, to trusting their Senate, many civilian administrators obeyed--only to find their ranks of enforcers, security mecha, and more emptying as warframes abandoned their duties in answer to Megatron’s call.

Next came the sanctions: embargoes on trade, even of supplies and anything but the barest trickle of energon into Kaon. These edicts had taken longer--rumor had it that Optimus had argued fiercely against such measures, unhappy with how they punished the innocent along with the guilty. They were of little use, in any case.  Vos was the first to openly defy the embargo, with Tarn not far behind; both city-states had been the hub for warframe development and design since the first Golden Age, and their leaders were more than eager to flout the Senate’s authority and profit at Iacon’s expense.

Finally, shortly after Megatron brought down the most recalcitrant of Kaon’s great Towers, the Senate marshaled its forces in an attempt to forcibly stop the flow of goods into Kaon. This proved to be all the excuse Megatron needed; the Lord High Protector took to the field, his forces smashing the blockades and routing the Iaconian conscripts with contemptuous ease.

In the end analysis, none of this was particularly surprising, and Soundwave was well aware that further escalation was not only likely, but almost inevitable. Still--he was no longer an Archivist. The vast powers in play cared nothing for what a single battered Chronicler thought, the patterns he saw. And with Megatron’s entrance onto Kaon’s stage, Soundwave had been granted a rare opportunity to seize some semblance of power and influence under the aegis of the Kaon Arena--an opportunity he could not afford to waste.

 

*****

 

In the orns after Megatron’s visit to the arena, a total of twenty-eight cohorts of Chroniclers arrived, brought to Kaon by Soundwave’s call. Bedraggled or broken, exhausted and running on fumes, over a hundred carriers and symbionts took shelter with the arena, and more were on their way. Many were in poor repair, and Chronicler frame parts were not commonly available. With the medics already beyond full capacity, Soundwave’s inquiry as to machining new parts was met with Stent’s over-stimmed fury. It took joors of patient negotiation -- plus the hiring of two old combat medics and a ten percent raise in energon rations for the rest of the medical personnel -- to work out a compromise. The bargain did nothing to improve Clench’s mood, but the gladiators were attended to more quickly... and Soundwave had his parts.

Finding places and duties for the Chroniclers once they were whole, however, was rather more difficult. At least the symbionts could range abroad and be useful. The flighted ones criss-crossed all of Kaon, observing everything, as was their wont. The more experienced, swifter groundframes infiltrated the manufacturing and market districts, gliding like shadows through the slums, adapting their colors to the murky shades of Kaon. The information the symbionts returned was immensely useful. Whenever a parts supplier tried to squeeze the arena for a few more chits than necessary, whenever the building supplies or crates of ordinance were slyly replaced with substandard materials ... Soundwave knew it. And Clench was all too happy to act on the information.

The spying was almost enough to counterbalance Clench’s ire at supporting all the carriers. A carrier-Chronicler was a well-made frame. But with bulky redundant filters, recharge capacitors, and a chest space mainly devoted to supporting symbionts -- instead of say, weapons or quantum drives or extra force multiplier links -- such mecha were not as strong or efficient as an average grounder. They could not access tight spaces; at least, not past the distance their cables could reach. And the cables tended to bother other mecha. Several times now, Clench had asked why Soundwave couldn’t simply ‘keep all them technimal-mecha’ and terminate the carriers’ employment -- a query simultaneously so bizarre and improbable that Soundwave had not been able to summon the patience for a polite reply.

But the question worried him, and the reasoning behind it even more so.

Soundwave’s chance at a solution was not long in coming, for the Towers clades were nothing short of desperate. Granted their positions by whim of the Overlord, the Towerling aristocrats now stood squarely between the Lord Protector’s displeasure and the Senate’s. And Megatron had already demonstrated very clearly how willing he was to gut a recalcitrant Tower, to co-opt a clade’s wealth and resources for his own ends. Balanced upon a razor’s edge, Kaon’s great Towers were certain to overreach.

Not three joor ago, one of Velocity’s symbionts had noted a commotion on the grounds of the sprawling Tower of Polymetallic clade, the premier architectural house in Kaon. The young flightframe had investigated, indulging his natural curiosity with several passes overhead, watching as a pair of Megatron’s delivery mecha heaved a crate off its gravsled. They’d upended it in the middle of the main Polymetallic courtyard, dumping the dismantled pieces of what had once been a very comely courtesan out upon the finely inlaid tile. Then, without a word, they’d turned and departed, leaving behind the evidence of Megatron’s displeasure.

Using Clench’s contact lines, Soundwave had promptly requested a meeting with a Polymetallic representative at the arena, to discuss ‘urgent’ matters related to Lord Megatron. Given the placement of the Lord Protector’s message, one of Kaon’s many satellites had surely picked up the event. No doubt Polymetallic’s cohorts were already scrambling to keep that information suppressed, away from the official databrokers and newscasters. If such images were released unofficially, however, perhaps to an unsanctioned databroker…

That unspoken threat had attracted immediate attention -- and the rare presence of a high caste clade-mech at the arena. Every line of Firestar was a work of art, out of place amid the grime and spilt energon around him. Even a drone could have sensed that this mech did not belong here; like many Towerlings, Firestar was built for elegance, with a high front fender and delicate curves through the thorax and pelvic girders. His colors would have marked him a Towerling even if his chassis had not -- the red of his nanites gleamed under the flat lights, casting glints of radiant orange.

Soundwave gestured to a bench set at an angle to the room’s sole worksurface. “Suggestion: Firestar, be seated,” he offered. The office was small and makeshift, little more than a convenient space in which to access the mainframe banks. It was a far cry from the pomp and gilding of Clench’s domain, much less the studied elegance of the Towers. But any mech with a sensor in his chassis could detect the fieldflows here, the rushing sensation of electricity moving through thick conduits. It was not a comfortable sensation, and the conflicting fields tended to make most mecha uneasy.

“I’d prefer to stand,” said the slender-framed mech, shifting his weight, gears and hydraulics whisper-quiet. His vocalizer was exquisitely modulated for tones that most mecha could not easily produce, let alone Soundwave. Firestar clasped his hands behind him, in mimicry of the gladiators who waited in the hallway outside.

Lugnut and Grabber had been none too pleased about being directed to play the role of arena enforcers. But the warframes did look impressive, unthinkably massive compared to the Towerling... even if Soundwave was fairly certain that they were playing a game of Feint over their comms. Firestar’s digits gripped the opposing gauntlet, as he attempted some semblance of calm. “I must apologize; when the comm arrived, I assumed I’d be speaking with Clench. New matters have come to my attention, and I fear we’ve little time for talk. So if you --”

“Firestar, incorrect,” interrupted Soundwave. “Your clade, afforded time for conversation -- but none for further mistakes.” He tilted his helm a little, as if in consideration. “Polymetallic Tower’s position, now precarious.”

The Towerling stilled, angling his plating minutely in a subtle, cultivated gesture of disinterest -- but the response was a little too hasty to be anything but evidence of fear. “You must be mistaken. I don’t know what you --”

“Your clade’s gift to the Lord Protector, ill-considered,” Soundwave stated simply.

Firestar’s plating clamped flat, energon lines constricting in an autonomic reflex, one obvious to Ratbat’s thermal-sensitive optics. “I... see.” He paused, and Soundwave could all but watch the Towerling access his comms in a rapid data-burst of encrypted code. Noting the encryption for later consideration, Soundwave let the signal through. It would be interesting to see which cohort within the Polymetallic clade responded. “You went to some trouble to summon my attention. Should I then presume that you mean to propose a solution?”

For a variety of political and economic reasons, Soundwave calculated that the chances of further reprisals against Polymetallic Tower were under three percent. Polymetallic was closely related to the trading Towers of Polyhex, which were situated to be particularly useful to Megatron. And it had been a common tactic for the Lord Protector to return the remains of spies to their respective alien factions in the past--a shot across the bow, as it were, foreshadowing what would happen should the Cybertronians be subject to further umbrage. Megatron had quite likely anticipated the Kaonite penchant for inserting informants into the houses of rival clades. But to an insular, privileged Towerling, accustomed to far subtler politics, Megatron’s move would almost certainly seem nothing less than a declaration of war. The Polymetallic clade would be desperate.

The fact that Megatron chose to employ upon other Cybertronians the tactics formerly wielded only against alien races was ... a decision that Soundwave had not yet fully analyzed. The potential implications and unintended consequences of such an action could have a great many permutations, and he resolved to dedicate a thread to that analysis. Later. When he could give it the appropriate attention. “Affirmative,” Soundwave answered. “Lord Megatron’s favor, best won through alternative means.”

The Towerling was too well trained to frown, but he could not eliminate entirely the doubting resonances of his field. “And you believe that you can somehow offer these means?” Firestar’s disdain might be subtle, but it was perceptible nonetheless. How could an obsolete chronicler-mech possibly be in a position to curry favor with the Lord High Protector?

“Negative. Soundwave: of no particular consequence. Kaon Arena, far more important.” Soundwave glanced meaningfully at the open hatchway, where the two bored warframes still stood at some semblance of attention. “Many gladiators, formerly under Lord Megatron’s command. Kaon Arena: shelters several highly-ranked, well-respected veterans.” Soundwave paused, watching as understanding dawned over those elegantly crafted faceplates. “Arena budgetary concerns, stringent. Supplies of energon and parts, tightly restricted; cosmetic repairs, rarely authorized.”

Obviously struggling to maintain his professional facade, Firestar shifted his stance slightly, leaning forward by a fraction of a micron. It was a promising tell, and Ratbat dutifully relayed it to his Master, who delivered his coup de grace. “Lord Megatron: has already favored certain gladiators with honorariums.” The fact that it had happened only once, and to only three mecha, Soundwave carefully did not mention. In the end analysis, it was concrete evidence of Megatron’s favor; something Polymetallic desperately needed.

“I see,” said Firestar, optics narrowing in thought. “You’re proposing that Polymetallic do the same.” It would neither be particularly expensive, nor too out of line -- for all that Lord Megatron might favor the arena now, the games were still illegal; the Senate had made that clear. But providing for some of the more... deserving gladiators might curry the Tower a certain amount of forgiveness, and was unlikely to be held against them later, no matter which side came through this mad schism victorious.

“Negative,” said Soundwave, flatly. “Such measures, a potential stopgap at best. Other clades, have already made similar gifts. Polymetallic Tower, however, better served by greater evidence of commitment. Especially, should Lord Megatron determine that Kaon’s clades are of no further use.” The carrier made no effort to circle around the true heart of the Towers’ dilemma, or their fears. For what, in truth, kept Megatron from simply taking what he willed? Respect for the law? For the Prime? Each orn, both were being pushed to greater limits.

Firestar paused. “An unlikely scenario, Soundwave,” he said, clearly reluctant to vocalize any doubts about Megatron’s success. “Our new Lord recognizes our present and future contributions to Kaon.” As the Senate must, should Megatron fail and be replaced by another new ruler, an Iaconian lackey. Firestar tilted his helm a little, a subtle tell, as he began to receive a series of encrypted comms. The messages were particularly secure, laced with recursions Soundwave could not begin to decode. The carrier did not try -- the complexity alone was sufficiently telling. Only the highest cohorts within a Tower, perhaps even Polymetallic himself, would use such expensive commlines. Soundwave did, however, transmit the raw comm data to Ratbat for recording... just in case the carrier should ever find himself in possession of all the proper keys.

“Polymetallic’s confidence, unsubstantiated,” Soundwave pointed out bluntly. “Tower usefulness to Lord Megatron, still undetermined.” While the Lord High Protector’s actions had been very visible--violently so--his intentions were a great deal more opaque. In truth, Soundwave doubted any mecha outside of the Lord Protector’s closest legati knew what Megatron truly intended for Kaon, or for Cybertron. “Lord Megatron, historically favors bold and unexpected maneuvers in the face of opposition. Polymetallic, unlikely to win respect or favor with small, cautious stratagems.”

Firestar’s new confidence, bolstered by the responses he had received from his cadre, faltered. “Perhaps. But you are asking Polymetallic Tower to take a significant amount of risk, with no assurance of return.”

Soundwave inclined his helm in a nod. “Affirmative. Soundwave: offers an exclusive opportunity. Not guarantees.” What assurances were there for any of them, in this uncertain age? The sooner Polymetallic learned that, the more likely they were to survive.

“I--I will have to consider your proposal,” Firestar said slowly. “Such a decision would have to be made at a higher level. The risks ….”

“Acknowledged.” Soundwave regarded the uncertain Towerling dispassionately. “Soundwave: also in a position to mitigate some of those risks. Disclosure of Polymetallic’s support, can be deferred.” The matter could easily be kept off the official accounts; Clench had long concealed the arena’s more illegal income in similar ways. If the Senate won the upper hand, Polymetallic could announce that they’d rebuilt the arena so that it might fulfill its original purpose, as a center for nonviolent competitions of physical skill.

And if Megatron’s split with the Senate deepened, Polymetallic would then be in perfect position to flaunt the Tower’s substantial history of support of the warframes. “Additional consideration: right of first refusal, will remain open for a short time only.” Soundwave’s offer would not remain exclusive forever. If Polymetallic was unwilling to gamble their standing by being associated with the Kaon Arena, then Soundwave would widen his net.

“Indeed?” Firestar’s skepticism had returned, but it was obvious the Towerling was no longer dismissing Soundwave out of hand. “And what would you require in exchange, if we were to avail ourselves of your assistance?”

Soundwave kept his field tightly controlled, even and dispassionate. There was no advantage in allowing this Towerling to see how important this was to him. “Kaon Arena: requires significant architectural repairs, rebuilding, expansion. Additionally, arena has sheltered other obsolete frametypes, during Overlord’s reign. Many, ill-suited to gladiatorial combat. Positions, allotments for these extraneous mecha: of significant benefit to arena’s budgetary concerns.”

Firestar blew out a slow vent, but his optics were bright, his field showed a trace of grudging respect as well as amusement. “You do not begin with trivialities, Soundwave,” Firestar observed, in refined understatement. Not many mecha had the bearings to make such demands of a Tower. Restoring the Kaon Arena to its former glory would take vorn, and be hugely expensive even by a Tower’s standards. And yet... it certainly wasn’t impossible. It would grant Polymetallic recognition that no other Tower could claim. But would it keep them safe from Lord Megatron?

Apparently Polymetallic thought so. Firestar paused as he unpacked the directives from his masters, digits tightening. “Still, your points are well taken. I shall have a proposal drawn up for your inspection, Soundwave,” Firestar said calmly, as if the negotiation was not being taken from his hands.

In the absence of instructions regarding Soundwave’s transparent request for ‘allotments’, however, Firestar could at least attend to that matter himself. Did Soundwave truly believe that any Polymetallic cohort would permit the blatant insertion of informants into their ranks? Firestar’s field sharpened with the confidence of a mech who knew he’d already outmaneuvered his opponent. “As for your last requirement, I know of no such positions. As part of your contract however, we will employ your mecha in coordinating any building activity, at entry level allotments.” Whatever spies the arena had hired would learn nothing at such a task, and would cost the arena far more than they made.

“Agreed,” said Soundwave easily, leaving Firestar with the cold feeling that he’d missed something important. He searched the chronicler’s faceplates, looking for betraying hints of satisfaction or victory, but found nothing. Soundwave was well-used to such games, his red-visored gaze as opaque and unreadable as his voice. Ratbat’s tiny crimson optics, glittering with cruel interest from where he perched in the shadows, only added to Firestar’s unease--but having come this far, the Towerling could hardly retreat without embarrassing both himself and his cohort.

“Very well. I shall return with your offer,” Firestar said. He inclined his helm in a bare nod of dismissal, doing his best to recover his footing. “Your hospitality-” his optics cut to the two hulking warframes on either side of the hatchway, and the faintest trace of irony flickered in his tone- “-is most appreciated. Polymetallic will be certain to give your proposal all the consideration it is due.”

Soundwave gave no sign he noticed the sarcasm. No doubt Firestar’s masters would classify him as yet another opportunist looking to fill his tanks upon the Tower’s largesse. That was fine; they could think whatever they liked, as long as Polymetallic gave him what he needed. He inclined his helm in return.

“Soundwave: will await your answer.”

 

*****

 

Curled tight inside the carrier, Transit dreamed. He dreamed of flitting shadows over seas of lapping lithium, of tiny tracks in the iron sands, of orange oxide blooms where deep gasses seeped from buried springs. He dreamed of wholeness, of limbs that moved with fluid grace and of a mind as sharp as any symbiont’s, lazily confident, undamaged.

And gradually, Transit became whole in truth. He had suffered little physical damage -- at least, none that a carrier’s dedicated repair systems could not manage. And while Soundwave was no coding specialist, he knew his symbionts’ programming better than he did his own. Gradually, he eased the contours of Transit’s data architecture into place, smoothing over broken lines, snipping away the crudest of Parametric’s inserts. The repairs took close to a quarter vorn, long enough that the sensation of constant drain on Soundwave’s systems faded. The signals simply became part of the background, the codes no longer flagging as unusual.

The pale, fissured gold of the symbiont’s spark, however... changed little. The small glowing orb nested close inside the corona of Soundwave’s slow-turning spark, but while it accumulated strength, the streaks of discoloration and ragged edges did not heal. Even with all his research, Soundwave could not say for certain what this meant. He was no creator mech, to spin a spark and know its ways, had none of a creator’s intricate hardware. If this damage prevented Transit from accessing his own memories, or kept him from storing more....

Soundwave was near recharge when he felt the first flickers of awareness from the symbiont.

This orn, like all the others before it, had been packed with far too many things which had to be done. Only now was Soundwave able to take a cycle for his own recharge, and for maintaining his symbionts. They were piled around him now, optics shuttered in the dimness, the only light the filtered glow of a monitoring screen in the corner. Ravage was a long, prickling warmth fitted close against Soundwave’s side, chinplates resting on his shoulder, heavy flail tail-tip a weight over the carrier’s knee joint. The two flightframes were tangled together, curled across Soundwave’s shoulder, necks and tails braided like cords. Flipsides was safely docked, exhausted after his work in the medbay. Rumble and Frenzy sprawled over the carrier’s hip joint, cupped partially by Soundwave’s hand, their blunt fingers clasped tight around his talons. Ratbat had snugged himself tight between Soundwave’s flank and the supple curve of Ravage’s bladed back, and had managed to cram his muzzle into the fine gap between two slabs of armor. His wings were splayed akimbo, and his vents made small murmuring sounds as he recharged, audible even over the background hum of the berth’s fans as they circulated warm atmosphere through resting substructures.

Kaon was cooler than the deeps of Iacon. It was good for processors, but joints could stiffen uncomfortably, without a source of heat. Though Soundwave hardly needed it, with all the symb--

Transit stirred, just faintly.

Soundwave came fully online. He didn’t move, but he could not conceal his surprise entirely. Not from his cohort, not when they were so close. Ravage was the first to rouse, alert as always, crimson optics slitting open.

_//What is it?//_

Soundwave didn’t answer for a moment. That first stirring had not been repeated--perhaps it had been just a random flicker of unarchived memory? He initiated processor-checks, combing through his systems for any minor glitches, but found nothing. _//Soundwave: is not certain,//_ he answered slowly. _//Something--//_

Transit stirred again, the restless, half-asleep tiny shifts of a symbiont moving towards full wakefulness. Soundwave stiffened, placing his free hand over his chestplates. _//Transit ...//_

 _//He wakes?//_ Ravage was now fully online, his head lifting. Buzzsaw and Laserbeak were not far behind, rousing from recharge with a swiftness typical of flightframes, even as the rest of the cohort came online more slowly.

 _//... affirmative,//_ Soundwave replied after another check to confirm his suspicions.

 _//Finally,//_ Ratbat grumbled, still more than half asleep--then added peevishly, _//But couldn’t he have done it *later*?//_ He squawked a little in protest as Ravage moved, the bladeframe sitting upward from his languid sprawl, sending Ratbat sliding into the space Ravage had formerly occupied. “Hey!”

The two flightframes disentangled themselves, talons scrabbling as they adjusted to crowd together on their carrier’s shoulder, while Soundwave pulled himself upwards into a sitting position. His movement earned Soundwave the ire of two mechkin and one glideframe, however, all of whom now woke up enough to glare at their erstwhile Master. “...hey! We were comfy,” Rumble protested, only to be elbowed by his brother. “What? Stoppit, ya glitch!”

Frenzy hissed at him. “It’s the other one--he’s w-wakin’ up.” He circumscribed a ball-shape in the air with both hands, and added, “The sick one, remember?”

“Oh, right!” Rumble scrambled upwards, optics bright with curiosity. Neither of them had been present to see Transit before the scaleframe had disappeared within the safety of Soundwave’s docks.

Ravage fixed the red mechkin with a warning glare, and Rumble paused, then subsided with ill grace, slumping back to sit with Frenzy beside Soundwave’s knee joint. The big bladeframe turned his attention back to Soundwave’s chestplates, and the tightly-enclosed field behind it. Even Ravage’s sensors could detect the docked symbiont only vaguely, especially while Flipside’s quiet field remained a confounding factor.

 _//Take caution. He may seek to exit the memory quite suddenly,//_ said Ravage privately, thinking on how he might respond should he discover that the memory he’d been living for many, many orns was nothing but the sensory shadow of another mech’s experience. And upon waking, if Ravage found himself confined in an unfamiliar carrier... but would a scaleframe respond with such instinctual violence?

Soundwave nodded, bringing more monitoring hardware online. For several long klicks, nothing happened, and Soundwave began to suspect that his alert was a false one, that the movement had been perhaps an unconscious twitch, and not a sign of volition.

And then, all at once -- the docked symbiont withdrew his internal connectors, breaking the slow tidal exchange of energon and energy. Forewarned, Soundwave withdrew the the fine-threaded lines of cilia that threaded through the symbiont, before they could be damaged. The scaleframe twisted, trying to move within his dock. _//Parametric!//_ the call rang over the Chronicler emergency channel, thick with fear and confusion both.

The likelihood of Parametric being close enough to hear that call was infinitesimal--but Soundwave could not afford to take that risk. He stifled the channel, squelching the outgoing call, even as he responded to Transit’s fear. _//Calm … there is nothing to fear. Soundwave: provides you sanctuary. Your release, forthcoming.//_

 

*****

 

Now fully awake, Transit jerked, field flaring outward in alarm and burgeoning panic at finding himself docked within a stranger. Soundwave unlocked the armor over his docks, the heavy overlapping chestplates sliding open in order to allow Transit the freedom to exit as he wished. The scaleframe undocked in a flurry of motion, almost before Soundwave’s antigravs were fully into place, uncurling as he hurtled outwards to land upon the berth. Finding himself the focus of multiple optics, Transit turned in a tight circle, the scaled plates of his armor bristling in fear. “Where is this? Who are--where are the others? Where is Parametric?” He tried to send out another call; again, Soundwave blocked it, washing static over the channel and keeping the the Kaon network from automatically forwarding that cry.

“Your cohort, not here.” It was an answer that was only slightly kinder than the truth. Soundwave tilted his head downward, gazing at the scaleframe, keeping his field open, his talons loose and at his sides. Ravage and the others also didn’t move, taking their cue from their Master; watching, but keeping their distance from the huddled scaleframe. “Echo: arrived 413 orn ago, seeking sanctuary. Query: does Transit remember?” Soundwave had never expected to ask a symbiont such a question, but in this instance ….

“Remember? Of course I--” Transit hesitated, his reflexive indignation fading as he obviously had to fight for the memories he needed. “I … it’s strange. Why does everything feel so smelted together? We were in--in Tarn. But that was--was …” He sucked in a harsh ventilation, shuddering. “Oh. Oh … I remember … Parametric, he--oh, Pax. He hurt Pax, after …. He wouldn’t stop, no matter what we said, he …” Transit hunkered down, his tail wrapping protectively around his frame as remembered grief suffused his field. “H-has it really been so long?”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave confirmed. “Transit: now at the Kaon Arena, under the protection of this cohort.” He gestured subtly at his symbionts. “Designation: Soundwave,” he said again, this time aloud. “Cohort: Ravage, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Ratbat, Flipsides, Rumble and Frenzy.”

The litany of names made Transit’s optics spiral wider. Ravage’s and Laserbeak’s names alone were famous enough to warrant recognition. That, combined with the size of Soundwave’s cohort--*seven* symbionts, in an age when most carriers struggled to support just two or three--was enough to startle Transit out of his protective curl. Seven... and Soundwave had still been able to fill Transit’s tanks. And much more besides -- every one of Transit’s systems reported back optimal.

Those wide optics found Ravage -- the bladeframe’s size made him unmistakable -- then the two flightframes, before finally noticing the baleful little optics of a glideframe. The small purple symbiont had crammed himself under the bend of this carrier’s kneejoint and now was glaring impartially at everyone, wingtips clapped over audials as if that might keep sound out. Transit edged a step away, and stumbled against the carrier’s thighplate. Two helms popped up from across the expanse of cobalt armor. “Hey, who is this P-parametric bot, anyway?” demanded the blue mechkin.

“Yeah. Whoever he is, he’ll be executing a different thread by the time we’s through with him,” growled the red one, grinding the knuckle joints of one fist into the other palm. The threatening gesture was one that big mecha sometimes used. From a symbiont, the effect was faintly ridiculous.

Transit squeaked a little. “You’re fighters? In the Kaon Arena?” he asked, awed.

The two mechkin exchanged looks. “Well... um. Not exactly...” started one. “B-but we could!” affirmed the other. “Yeah, we been watching them slaggers real good -- R-rumble knows all the moves-- yeah, like the one where Grabber fraggin’ kneecaps a mech and then ‘e twists around like this and--”

The pair of cassettes reminded Transit of Slipknot, always too big for his plating, as fierce as a warframe. And yet the place that should have echoed with the feel of that fiery spark, linked through a carrier’s encompassing bond, was cold and dark. Empty.

Transit sucked in a harsh vent, turning back to Soundwave. “They left him. They - they must have. After he... hurt Pax.” That didn’t feel quite right, but Transit hurried on, regardless. “I have to find him.” Transit put a little clawed paw on the big carrier’s thighplate, and looked up, brilliant blue optics pleading, searching Soundwave’s visor. “They did something to him. An - an upgrade. But it didn’t work right, and he would try to -- to tear it out. They put inhibitors on him, and we didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t tell us. He’s still...” A chill washed over Transit, deeper even than the void of missing bonds. “He might still be there. Even... even now. Please.”

“Transit’s request, not possible,” Soundwave replied, his flattened tones making the denial harsher than perhaps had been intended. He did his best to soften and modulate his words, knowing how much they would hurt. “Echo, took Transit only after remaining cohort-siblings were dead or fled.” He paused, then said even more quietly, “Pax and Slipknot: extinguished. Recall’s location, unknown. Echo feared that Parametric would kill you as well. That outcome--still a possibility.”

Transit shrank back, unsure if the big carrier’s words were a threat or a warning. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“We did not wish to do anything that might further harm you,” Laserbeak said, taking up the thread of explanation with an eloquence that Soundwave lacked. “We did not interfere with your bond with Parametric; if he yet lives, then it is still intact. Which means that if he is able, he will come for you. Our attempts to conceal you will thusly place my Master and my cohort, as well as all those who shelter here at the Arena, in danger.” He curled his neck, perched calmly upon Soundwave’s shoulder, but his field held echoes of regret, and of warning. “Soundwave wishes to protect you, and I know Echo does as well. But we will not be able to do so, unless you sever your bond with Parametric. I know well that this is a hard thing to ask--but it is necessary.”

“Parametric wouldn’t--” Transit began; then stopped short, unable to argue with the evidence of his own indelible memory. He hunkered down, trembling. “He didn’t mean … it wasn’t … wasn’t his fault! It was the upgrade! We didn’t know!”

“We know,” Ravage said, crimson optics watchful. “But there is no way to undo what has been done. All that we can do is aid and protect you--and we can only do that with your cooperation.” He paused, tail tapping restlessly against the berth surface, then added coolly, “You could still choose to go back. None here would stop you. But it is unlikely you would survive for long. Parametric, while he was whole, could not have wanted that.”

Transit folded himself down, a spiky bundle of misery, little taloned forepedes clasped over his slender muzzle. After a moment, Rumble reached over Soundwave’s plating to awkwardly pat the golden symbiont. “That’s all kinds of slagged up,” he said in commiseration.

The scaleframe’s vents hitched, a quiet little hiccup of sound. The memories came slowly, in flashes and starts, but he could see for himself that Soundwave’s words were terrifyingly true. Accessing those filaments of recollection hurt, ached in a way that Transit had never experienced, as if something in him were scraped and raw. The bond was still with him, though, a silvery thread, an elemental union now unmaintained, tattered with age and the abuse it had suffered -- forced to carry too much data, for too long. Transit was all too aware that he hadn’t fully recovered in over four hundred orns; was the bond to blame?

But how could Transit simply abandon his Templar, no matter how lost he’d become? “He could hardly move, most of the time, but he still kept us close, and I... I think we were the only thing keeping his processors together. He’s still... he still functions. But he doesn’t have any of the others now. If -- if I leave him too....” Transit hunched even tighter.

“T-then maybe you can help him,” interrupted Frenzy. Ravage glanced to the young mechkin, optics narrowed. Frenzy shrugged. “Ain’t no helping any mech, once you’ve gone to the Well. An’ it sounds like he’d send you there, if you don’t let ‘im go. You gotta stay functional, if you w-wanna be able to help.”

Transit unclasped his talons, looked up. “Help? But they couldn’t...”

Frenzy shrugged. “S-soundwave’s got medics here n’ scrap -- what?” He turned to glare at Ravage, who had bared long fangs, his displeasure plain. “How d-dangerous could this bot be?”

Laserbeak and Ravage had both shared the memories of Echo’s cohort, and through them, so too had Soundwave. Zircon and Hematite had only been in Parametric’s presence for a few kliks, but even that short experience... was frightening. And there was no telling how much Parametric’s powers had changed and settled over the past quarter vorn.

“Transit’s survival, of greater importance,” Soundwave said to Frenzy and Transit both. “Soundwave: unwilling to risk your safety in order to save Parametric.” Transit’s loyalty was commendable, as was his resilience, but carriers were expendable. And a carrier who had turned upon his symbionts as Parametric had …. It was clear Soundwave believed that such a carrier was far too dangerous to be allowed anywhere near his own cohort.

Transit crumpled, shrinking into himself as his tiny glimmer of hope guttered and died. “You’re saying … I should leave him for my own good. J-just leave him to suffer, and pretend I can’t still hear him screaming. If not for us … he could’ve been reformatted, found an allotment. He could’ve been *useful* again, but he wouldn’t leave us behind, and we were starving, and if we hadn’t needed him so much, m-maybe he wouldn’t have agreed to let them do this to him--”

“Negative,” Soundwave said firmly. “Abandonment of symbionts, never an option for a true carrier. Parametric’s sacrifice, his choices, part of who he was.” When that huddled golden form didn’t respond, he hesitated--then vented a sigh. “Soundwave: will attempt to neutralize and aid Parametric, if possible. But symbiont safety, Kaon Arena security, of paramount importance. Other Chronicler cohorts, also our responsibility. Such assurances, only possible if Transit agrees to unwind his bond.”

It was a hard thing to ask, especially of a symbiont who had already been through the pain that Transit had experienced. But it had to be done. Soundwave bent a visored gaze to Transit. “This offer, acceptable?”

Transit said nothing for a long, endless moment, brilliant optics searching the big carrier’s faceplates, huddled and still. Frenzy reached out, awkwardly patting that bristled back in silent sympathy. Slowly, Transit’s raised scales relaxed marginally, edges smoothing to lay flat, until the symbiont was a close ball of warmth nestled against Soundwave’s leg.

“Yes,” the symbiont said at last, snuffling a little against an edge of Soundwave’s thighplates. Transit knew full well he stood no chance of rescuing Parametric -- not by himself, and certainly not like this, while he was still so fogged and disoriented. “I’ll -- I will do it.” 

The tarnished silver thread of his carrier’s bond vibrated with Transit’s sorrow, his regret. Forged between sparks, this kind of connection was unique to the Chronicler class, old and elemental. It was born of a time before there were numbers for counting, before the call of the Primes brought their race together in more complex ways. Now, the moorings of that bond were loose, its gears stripped and raw. Reluctantly, Transit reached outward and felt along that ancient pathway, and coiled the thread in his own coding, winding it away from his soul. It was an gouging, aching sensation, like peeling a line of soldered alloy away from a cracked strut. _//Master,//_ Transit whispered, focusing one last wordless pulse of adoration along the line…

… and then let it go.

Even as he released it, something distant roused. Something blind, and mad, something as destructive and as terrible as a torrent of acid rain. That shadowed presence seethed, a fractured maze of glitching recursions, as if fragments of a thousand, thousand mecha had been copied and only half assimilated. Before the final reverberations of that bond dissolved into silence, it took Transit’s sorrow, echoed it, warped it--then returned it as a single twisted glyph from which there was no escape, no hope or light or life.

_//MINE.//_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings this chapter for polyamory and plug n' play-style funtimes. :D

“Query: Stringscript, in need of assistance?”

“No!” the symbiont retorted, wriggling harder, and managed to tangle another coil around a braided sheaf of cables. A serpentframe was small and very limber -- but evidently not quite limber enough. 

Soundwave tilted his helm a little. “Observation: datacenter hardware, appears improperly assembled, clearances insufficient.” A lie -- Soundwave had done the installation himself. “Soundwave, wishes to correct hardware placement. Query: may Soundwave disassemble faulty pieces now?”

The tangled serpentframe gave that some thought. “Yess,” he finally allowed, still a little sullen. 

With a nod, Soundwave reached into the open datacenter station, unclipping wires and removing relay cards with delicate care, until he could at last untangle the serpentframe’s sharp-scaled coils, which shifted to grip his wristjoint. “Your patience, appreciated,” Soundwave commented as he finally freed the symbiont and withdrew his hands. No few of the cards and wires in the station had been scraped badly -- Soundwave added the repairs to his list. _//Stringscript’s route, unusual. Other access points, preferable?//_

“Priii-mus,” breathed Payload, one of the ranked gladiators to whom these quarters belonged. Now that the new habitation wing was complete, some of the fighters had been afforded at least a modicum of privacy -- actual rooms, rather than open barracks. “Careful, mech. Them slaggers’ll slag a mech up,” he said uneasily, watching the serpentframe spread his parabolic hood, unkinking each shining scale. 

There was the faintest tingle as the plasma-cutting edges of each scaleset rubbed against Soundwave’s armor, and it was with due consideration that the carrier turned his talons over, palms upward, to allow Stringscript to stretch and coil as he pleased. With a frametype modelled off of that of a razorsnake, serpentframes could be unquestionably lethal in close quarters. Plasma-charged scales could lop off a limb--or a helm--with one coiled squeeze; whipcrack-fast strikes could gouge deep gashes into a mech’s armor, sever sensory arrays, or slice apart pedes and incautious fingers. No Cybertronian handled a razorsnake casually, and even carriers had occasionally fallen afoul of an unbonded serpentframe’s bad temper. 

Stringscript was merely peevish, however, not startled or angry. And after a vorn in the arena, he was well familiar with Soundwave’s field. _//Repair access B has been closed off,//_ said the serpentframe crossly. _//Had to go around. And hey, who’s he calling a--//_

 _//Soundwave, should examine repair access B,//_ said Soundwave, nodding politely to the gladiator, ignoring that mech’s wide-spiraled optics. He straightened, still holding the serpentframe, and made his exit. _//Renovations, perhaps overzealous.//_

“Hey,” Payload followed, poking his head out into the corridor. He gestured at the scattering of equipment. “Now what the frag am I supposed to do with --”

“Soundwave, will return in due course,” said the carrier, a promise which, he was fully aware, promised nothing at all. Ah, there it was -- a small vent set at the juncture of wall and ground, only about as tall as two talons and now securely covered by a bolted grill. Overzealous, indeed. Soundwave crouched to examine the new barrier. 

_//It’s hard to get to the powerlink station, even when this is open...//_ the serpentframe noted, helpfully unlooping his coils from one of Soundwave’s wrists, clearly angling to be carried to his destination. He pressed his long, supple body against Soundwave’s upper arm, field a vivid green pressure against Soundwave’s cobalt one. 

_//Hn. Soundwave, can see the difficulty,//_ Soundwave agreed. He unlimbered a cable and folded the tip down into the right tools, then began to remove the offending grill. The covering popped off, and Soundwave lifted it aside. He would have to make sure a proper vent set was installed, something which accessed the mess hall more directly. This one was dark and small, and Stringscript seemed in no hurry to leave. In the meantime... would it truly hurt to take the symbiont to his destination?

The deliberate scrape of talons on metal made Soundwave turn his head. Ravage materialized out of the shadows. The bladeframe stalked forward, amor half-hackled, to block the hallway. He gave Stringscript a long, level stare, and his heavy, flail-spined tail lashed once.

 _//Ravage?//_ Soundwave inquired of his First, a bit uncertain as to the bladeframe’s purpose. Ravage’s field was subtle, and could be hard to read. Now, however, he was making little attempt to disguise his temper. His possessiveness was easy to see, overlaid with sparks of jealousy and … desire? 

Oh. *That* meaning was perfectly clear. 

Soundwave lowered his arm to politely place the serpentframe upon the floorplates. Stringscript was already moving, however, uncoiling himself and whipping away down the vent with a serpentframe’s characteristic speed. _//Right! Busy, things to check, carrier calling me, gotta go,//_ he blurted, making a hasty retreat.

Ravage’s optics glittered as they tracked the rapidly retreating serpentframe, until the interloper was gone behind the walls. Then they flicked back to Soundwave, examining him in detail. Ravage’s talons tightened on the rough, slab-metal flooring. His jaws parted just enough to display a narrow line of teeth. The bladeframe padded silently forward, and Soundwave extended both arms, silently. Ravage’s sensory spines twitched, flicked, as he studied first one wrist, then the other. 

A subtle scratch in the nanites gave Ravage pause, and Soundwave could feel the symbiont’s possessive impulses spike through his field. The mark was a small one, hardly a scrape. Soundwave had taken worse a thousand times over. In the close environment of the arena, now home to more symbionts than had resided in the entirety of Kaon even when energon and allotments had been plentiful, non-cohort symbionts could hardly be avoided. Typically Soundwave’s cohort understood that, and made allowances. 

Ravage, it seemed, was not in the mood for allowances this cycle. The bladeframe lifted his heavy, darkmetal head. _//Whatever you’re doing,//_ he growled, _//can wait.//_ Moving as if he were more liquid than blade, Ravage turned, stalked a few steps. _//Walk with me,//_ the bladeframe said flatly, teeth glinting. It was just shy -- just barely shy -- of a command. 

Soundwave stood, and followed, leaving Payload and his disassembled workstation behind without comment.

*****

“Well, frag,” murmured Payload -- but not too loudly -- as he watched the Chronicler depart. Then he headed back inside to puzzle over the pieces of his workstation. “Fraggin’ place is turning into a zoo.” 

*****

Laserbeak and Buzzsaw were waiting for them, gliding silently around the corner of the empty hallway outside Soundwave’s quarters. Both of them circled and landed neatly upon Soundwave’s shoulderplates, even as they exchanged tight-banded greetings with Ravage.

“Hey, Boss,” purred Buzzsaw, rubbing his wedge-shaped helm against Soundwave’s audial. “Got seen carryin’ a serpentframe around, huh?”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave said ruefully, lifting talons to stroke them both in apology. “Stringscript, thoroughly entangled; his carrier, outside the arena. Soundwave: able to render assistance more expediently.” Laserbeak nipped sharply at one audial, winding his tail possessively around Soundwave’s arm, and the carrier ducked his helm a bit. “Soundwave: apologizes. Such attentions, inconsiderate.” Truthfully, he had been neglecting his cohort a bit. Wrangling over a hundred chronicler cohorts in and around the arena had taken so much of his time and attention that he had simply gotten used to doing what needed to be done, preferably in the most efficient way possible. 

“We know you’re busy, but you’re *ours*, Boss,” Buzzsaw said, his talons tightening on the tough surface of Soundwave’s pauldron. “We let you carry Transit around, but that doesn’t mean you’re available for every symbiont in Kaon to snuggle, yanno.” He dipped his head down, rubbing the tip of his razor-edged beak along the sensitive cabling just above Soundwave’s collar fairing, sparking a deliberate, delicious charge.

The hatchway cycled open, obedient to Ravage’s codes, and the bladeframe turned, fixing all three of them with a narrow-opticked stare. _//Inside.//_

“Uh oh,” Buzzsaw said in a stage-whisper, huddling playfully close as Soundwave entered their quarters, Ravage following. “I think we’re in trouble, Boss.”

“Soundwave: in agreement.” While better than the communications closet they had first been assigned, their quarters were still far from palatial, with bare walls and a minimum of necessities. The berth, however, was larger than the original; more able to accommodate both Soundwave’s larger frame and several symbionts besides. He sat obediently on the berth, and opened both hands, palm upwards; waiting for Ravage to come to him in his own time. Two of his secondaries unfurled, their cabled tips lifting to caress and twine about Laserbeak and Buzzsaw’s plating with an achingly delicate touch. “Query: will Ravage allow us to make amends?”

Ravage watched the flightframes enjoy their caresses for several moments, tailtip tapping the floorplates. He engaged himself in a slow, luxurious stretch, all his spinal erectors flaring, talons curling strips of metal from the floor. Then, with studied indifference, he padded closer, circling around to Soundwave’s side, and pushing head and powerful neck against Soundwave’s knees. He stepped lightly over Soundwave’s pedes, back lifting in a flexing stretch.

Buzzsaw chortled, flaring his plating for the fine multitool tips of the secondary cables. A lot of carriers had to visually coordinate their cable tips, had to look in order to use ‘em right -- Soundwave employed his with great skill, by feel alone. The flightframe could hear Laserbeak, on Soundwave’s other shoulder, trill happily as fine cilia blossomed, tiny tendrils searching between armored plating, carrying charge with each tickling little touch. 

Which was unfair. Buzzsaw had no cilia. He nibbled on Soundwave’s cable a little, twisting his neck around to nip at it. With no cilia forthcoming, Buzzsaw pinned it down with one taloned pede and peered in the multitool end. _//Think I got a defective one, Laserbeak--//_

The cable wiggled, curling underneath his pede as if in indignation, nimbly avoiding Buzzsaw’s examination. Amused, the flightframe dipped his head, trying to nip, letting the multitool tip evade his darting beak by microns each time--

\--then let out an undignified metallic squawk as a third cable wrapped around him from behind, pinning his wings. Soundwave’s cilia extended, insinuating themselves under his plating in a single sinuous rush, curling around fine tensors and stroking against threaded protometal. “--wah! B-boss!” Buzzsaw’s tail lashed as he shivered convulsively, caught off-guard by the caress. The cable under his pede took advantage of his distraction, slipping free and winding itself upward until Buzzsaw was well and truly trapped. 

Soundwave’s amusement was plain, even if, to all appearances, his attention never wavered from Ravage. “Buzzsaw: casting aspersions upon his carrier’s prowess?” he said evenly, talons turning to tenderly stroke over Ravage’s arched spine, rubbing over flared plating, talon-tips dipping between to stroke and tease. Ravage gave a low rumble of pleasure, outer armor loosening by degrees under the warmth of his master’s touch, and pushed himself more insistently under Soundwave’s hands. 

“N-noooo ….?” Buzzsaw said, his vocalizer warbling somewhat incoherently as he squirmed under the sudden onslaught of pleasure, unable to wiggle free. “W-would never do that, Boss …” Laserbeak clicked a little at him in amusement, winding himself possessively around his own cable, arching his wings for easier access. Buzzsaw, however, was too distracted to bring himself to care.

Flexible in ways that few Cybertronians could match, Ravage twisted his body, slow and strong, and weaved his way back between Soundwave’s pedes. The blades of his body scraped just lightly along calf and shin, the back of Soundwave’s thighs and the front of his knees. The low rev of Ravage’s lasercore couplings was a deep vibration all up through Soundwave’s wrists and hands. When Soundwave’s talons had reached all his favorite places with carefully scritching touches, Ravage disengaged, jumped effortlessly up onto the berth. 

His faceted optics studied Soundwave for a time, watching the flightframes trill and flare their thin plates of armor, their small frames writhing happily. Placing each paw with precision, Ravage stalked close, reared back to put heavy forepedes on Soundwave’s chestplates, long talons scraping, just a bit. He exvented, heated atmosphere curling between Soundwave’s throat cables, down into the bigger mech’s chassis. 

Chirring happily, Laserbeak twisted subtly. Just a little more, a little nudge -- there. A few more of Soundwave’s cilia found their places, and the flightframe fed the memory he’d prepared over that forming hardline. The connection was tenuous, the impressions jumbled -- but shockingly, achingly clear. 

The weight of Ravage’s chest over his back, taloned forepedes to either side of him, no escape even if he’d wanted it. Each of the symbionts’ pairs of hardlines secure in their sockets, the scraping ache of the big bladeframe’s long dentae ghosting -- so lightly! -- over the juncture of cabled neck and wing. The sensation of being pinned down by the larger symbiont, held and devoured while pleasure raced between them... every sensation, every shuddering vent, Laserbeak conveyed in a single subsuming burst.

And as the memory swept the big carrier, Ravage laid his teeth on Soundwave’s collar plating, biting down with exacting precision. Caught by surprise, a cry escaped Sounwave at the sudden burst of sensation both within and without, the sense of being claimed, being caged and pleasured. Outside the memory, it was an improbable idea; Soundwave had always been large for his class, his frametype designed to protect, to intimidate potential threats, and to guard those whom he carried. Inside--inside, he was still Soundwave, but he was Laserbeak as well, sleek and beautiful and fragile, pinned and writhing underneath the heat of Ravage’s chassis, his wings outspread as sensations shifted back and forth between them, joined together in an electric tide of bliss. 

Soundwave opened himself wide to the memory, instinctively channelling it to the others so that they might share it as well, his cables reaching out, seeking Ravage, cilia extended pleadingly. And as they wreathed around the bladeframe, Ravage growled low, vibrations humming through every strut, over the surface of his plating. He took advantage of his Master’s distraction to push Soundwave downward and back, Soundwave retaining just enough presence of mind to ease the flightframes forward a little, so that they could splay comfortably over his shoulders. Curling into the secondary cables, Ravage crouched upon that broad chassis, daggered talons scraping possessively over Soundwave’s thickly-armored chestplates with the silvered scrape of metal upon metal. _//MY carrier,//_ he growled, opening the channel to them all, shading it with memory and meaning. Soundwave had always been his, had been so since that first moment of recognition. Ravage might have had numberless other masters, but here, in this time and place, he was still Soundwave’s First, and he would defend that claim against all comers. Cables wound around him, bladed tips stroking over his plating, cilia infiltrating protometal, teasing at his sockets, and he growled again in pleasure, the resonances shifting through all of them, sparking new echoes of bliss.

Laserbeak held the memory as long as he could, letting them all abide within that pleasure... even as cilia filled his ports, snaking through his chassis, coiling every physical part of him, steadying and deepening the hardline link. And then Soundwave applied a carefully-calibrated few volts of charge directly to the flightframe’s threaded protometal, and the tables were turned, the memory lost in pure physical delight. 

Ports spiraled wide for his carrier’s claiming, Buzzsaw spun the next memory into the bond -- _flight_. Speed through the whipping atmosphere, a thrilling dance between tattered clouds, skimming a vast rockface to ride the updrafts higher. Soundwave could feel everything, the strain across his flightplates, the spiraling arabesques of freedom -- a delight soon doubled at finding his agility met and matched by another flyer. Some part of Soundwave recognized Laserbeak, the rest saw only grace in metal. The two frames spiralled upwards, challenging each other to go faster, further. Then, reaching a zenith, exultation and challenge in their calls, they circled together, locked talons, traded cables.... and fell. 

The pleasure was a wild thing, a resonance forged in danger and speed. Wind whipped charge over every surface of his chassis, even as databurst pulses echoed between the falling frames. Necks and tails twined, wings furled, until they were one longer two mecha but one, delight and challenge and ecstasy as intertwined as their frames. Distantly, Soundwave could feel Ravage’s savage delight, even as charge crackled over intertwined cables, dancing over their plating. Soundwave’s own frame was a heavy, groundbound thing, never meant for such rarified heights of pleasure--but that hardly mattered here. Not when Buzzsaw lifted them on spark-vivid memory, sharing his wings and his fearless joy with them all.

The memory of the flight ended with a strut-shattering burst of pleasure, the two flightframes flinging themselves apart moments before they impacted the ground, charge still crackling over their frames, arcing into the air from the tips of their wings. And in the berth, the three symbionts twined over and into each other, a tangle of wings and talons and cabling, armor flared open to rub protometal against protometal, opening themselves utterly to Soundwave’s possession. 

Cables wreathed all the symbionts, a possessive, clasping embrace. Multitools folded tight into the notches around ports, cables flooded their sheaves of cilia deep into the symbionts’ ports, rivers of brilliant blue tendrils that branched and spread throughout their frames. It was a taking of the very best kind, ownership of every strut and relay -- an a primal yielding, born in absolute trust. Slow, rising pulses coaxed the symbionts’ frames to greater pleasure, all of it echoed and magnified and shared. 

It was difficult, in the midst of this multilinked oneness, to remember where one frame began and another ended. Soundwave’s vast transfer rate made for an unparalleled conduit -- not a single byte dropped or sensation lost, so that they four were a single organism, a many-sparked thing of pleasure. Struggling against the physical riptide, Ravage arched his head back, claws drawing fine scrapes into Soundwave’s topcoat. And spun one more memory into the bond. 

Once more, the world broke open -- and Soundwave saw himself through smaller optics, felt his own cables penetrating his chassis, a flood of cilia twining throughout every part of him. He was Ravage, feeling the crawling pleasure as hot blue bliss rooted new pathways through him, threaded between every powerful strut, twined fine lines of protometal. And simultaneously he was a carrier and guardian, rejoicing in the slow curl of cables over his charges, the thrill of pressing so deeply within them. His symbionts keened, twining together, pressing themselves against the cables that had infiltrated right down to their cores -- and Soundwave shared their rising excitement, writhing in counterpoint as he took and felt himself being taken, as their charge raced through his systems. 

The grounded metal of the berth absorbed a great deal of their excess charge, preventing it from arcing to walls or delicate equipment. But it could not absorb it all, not when every tiny movement made electric pleasure sizzle across plating, minds and sensory networks so deeply intertwined that that the barriers of separate frames, separate sparks, no longer seemed to matter. Soundwave stroked deeply into his cohort, deliberately routing that charge, letting it roll over them in carefully measured doses of ecstasy. And Ravage captured that ecstasy, shared it, stroked his carrier with teeth and talons and the vulnerable crossing of bared protometal with protometal, dragging Soundwave ruthlessly higher, riding a wave of electric bliss--

\--until they could no longer sustain the delicate balance. They tumbled into incoherent ecstasy, threads of memory and sensation shattering into bliss. Soundwave’s frame seized, his cables curling tight about his precious burdens; his vocalizer aching with the force of his cry. And above him, around him, his overload was echoed by first Buzzsaw, then Laserbeak. Then, finally, Ravage followed, talons curling as he roared, shuddering in ecstatic overload.

They hung together, sparks united by charge, for an eternity -- or a moment. Capacitors emptied, and the electric-pop of overload faded from around their frames, leaving all four mecha slumped and blissfully offline. Their bodies were so entwined, so wrapped in cables and the vivid glow of cilia, that it was difficult to tell where one mech ended and another began.

One at a time, Soundwave’s internals finished their error checks and logged back in. Even still, it was hard to move his flexors, difficult to summon the charge even to draw a ventilation. The tips of his talons, though, ghosted over his entwined symbionts, touching with great tenderness. His beauties, his eldest -- his. Sometimes, as now, that realization overpowered him -- the knowledge that they’d all chosen to stay here, with him, amongst a world full of other carriers. The honor was overwhelming, and Soundwave could feel his own gratitude and adoration as intensely as if they were physical parts of him.

The hatchway to Soundwave’s chambers spiraled open, then hissed closed again. Small pedes scraped on the floor decking, then hands found the rungs set into the sides of the berth. “Hi,” squeaked Flipsides, climbing into the pile of symbionts atop Soundwave’s chassis. Ravage obligingly shifted to one side, curling his frame, and the little mechkin snuggled into the space, sighing in pleasure as a couple secondaries lifted, languidly caressing his plating. “Mmmm … ‘s nice,” he murmured, optics dimming, secure in the embrace of his carrier. “Stent was having a bad day. Was glad to feel you guys so happy. Ravage got tired of waiting?”

“Affirmative,” Soundwave replied, his vocalizer still staticky around the edges with excess charge. “Flipsides, enjoyed?”

“Very much,” the mechkin confirmed, smiling and snuggling a little deeper. His portcovers slid back to admit lazily seeking cilia, letting him bask in the others’ afterglow. 

Buzzsaw snickered. “Mmn … gotta get into trouble more often, Boss, if this is the result.” He uncurled his neck from where it was twined with Laserbeak’s, drawing the side of his beak languidly along his flightbrother’s outflung wing.

“Hmm--provoking Ravage, unwise,” Soundwave murmured. “Alternate methods, still under consideration.” He opened a channel to them all, sharing an amusing image of a Seeker, all wings and burnished plating and braggadocio, doing his best to attract a trineleader’s attention in an obvious come-hither pose. “Soundwave: unskilled at acting coy. More practice, perhaps required?”

Buzzsaw and Flipsides chortled aloud, thoroughly happy. “I think you should,” Laserbeak said, nibbling teasingly at the point of Soundwave’s audial. “The arena would be even more interesting if you struck a suggestive pose, on occasion,” he said, superimposing his own image -- that first moment when Soundwave lifted his cables in a wreathing halo of silver for Laserbeak, chestplates sliding back to reveal that beautiful rank of docks, each of them adjusting just to fit the flightframe....

The stunningly arousing snippet of memory made all of Soundwave’s symbionts shiver, even exhausted as they were. Other mecha could be attractive or elegant, but nothing set fire to the diode coils quite like a carrier. Especially one as endowed as Soundwave. 

Ravage’s optics narrowed, and Soundwave tasted that spike of jealousy once more. “Not,” rumbled the bladeframe, “in public.” Far too many symbionts lurked out there, and even if they were bonded... he could feel them looking at his carrier far too often. 

Buzzsaw sighed, still tingling from that memory snippet. “You’re right,” he admitted sadly. “But! Shinier plating wouldn’t hurt nothing.” He lifted his head lazily, a little bit wobbly as tensors refused to obey him quite right. He poked lightly at the marks Ravage had left on Soundwave’s frame, though he made no move to dislodge the cilia that still threaded him. “We’re gonna haveta polish those scratches out, first....”

******

“I don’t get why we gotta build this scrap anyway for ‘im,” complained Maul, turning the file of schematics over, searching for sense between the weird lines and code. All these odd walls and empty spaces... fragging bizarre, is what it was. Cables threaded through the whole mess in ways that didn’t even seem to make any sense. 

“You gonna whinge about it, or help me wire this... whatever it is?” griped Crasher, wedging his bulk under the elevated flooring. 

Maul vented a sigh, and seated himself atop the chunk of plating that Crasher was attempting to wedge into place. “Think we could get out of this? Just for a few joor?” he asked wistfully, ignoring the dirty look Crasher cast his way. “Grabber was gonna try that new energon gel machine. Fragger’ll probably explode again, and I wanna be there when it does.” 

Crasher paused, checking his comms. “Backstreet says Soundwave left the arena a joor ago, so we probably could...” he stated, not entirely convinced.

“Left the arena?” Maul’s brow ridge lifted. “On his own two pedes? Not, like, sent one of those technimals?” He issued an impressed whistle at Crasher’s confirmation. “Don’t think he’s ever done that. I was starting to think he was, like, one of them ‘living smelted.’ Yanno, the ones that can’t go too far from their smelting pools? Drink the energon right from your piping? Crasher, my mech, we gotta get you reading some more quality fiction....”

Bickering, the two gladiators left off their work and went to find Grabber, never noticing the tiny, newly-installed cameras that lined the corridor.

******

This part of the city was not for the faint of spark. Kaon’s outskirts and unofficial districts did not go as deep as Iacon; instead they were a multileveled sprawl, spreading hundreds of filum in every direction outside the Kaon’s shining Towered core. The Kaon slums were no less unfriendly, however, even if they lacked the choking heat and sulfuric smog of Iacon’s deeps. Instead they were cold, bare and chill and exposed, the rust-splotched and acid-pitted higher levels occupied by the least fortunate and the empties, while those mecha that still possessed some energon and forethought huddled in the warmer environs below, where poorly-maintained joints and struts were less likely to fracture from the cold. 

The warrens themselves were also uniquely unfriendly towards interlopers; some areas, while unsparked, had been designed with alt modes of their own, holdovers from older times when those neighborhoods were expected to be as flexible in their design as the mecha who lived and worked within them. These alts were nowhere near as massive in scale or in firepower as a true cityformer, of course, but they still functioned, jagged, sharp-toothed fragments of walls sliding away to be replaced by pitted, buckled roadways, residential blocks folding into themselves to randomly rise or sink below the surface. Their ancient coding corrupted by time and lack of attention, such neighborhoods could be dangerously erratic, transforming spontaneously beneath one’s pedes, with none of the safety protocols common in later designs. At best, an incautious interloper might find themselves trapped in an ever-shifting labyrinth, caught in a box that suddenly had no exits. At worst … well, mecha had been known to disappear in Kaon, and few could say whether they had fallen prey to the Empties, other mecha, or simply caught unawares and crushed--devoured by Kaon itself. It didn’t happen often... but the danger was a very real one.

Soundwave was fully cognizant of all of these dangers. Unfortunately, meeting in safer environs was not an option. Over the last vorn, the Kaon Arena had risen to new heights in prestige and popularity, and the scrutiny placed upon its caretakers had likewise increased. With far more optics, many belonging to the Towers, upon Soundwave than ever before, he had been forced to go to greater lengths to keep his preparations low-key, his plans a secret. For many things, symbiont messengers and underlings could suffice. This, however, was not one of them. 

Close to his destination, Soundwave was forced to transform -- a rampway had been replaced by worn stairs that weren’t on any map. He stepped over a trickle -- used oils and industrial chemcials probably -- that ran for a time alongside the dirty walkway like an open sewer before it filtered down cracks, seeping away into the underworkings of Kaon and the very body of Primus. Optics peered down at him from above, upper levels formed by a jumble of rust-rotted bracers and shadows. 

It was not, Soundwave reflected, really that bad. He had seen worse districts, had abided in on a level not that much different from this one before his flight from Iacon. And yet in only a vorn, he’d become so accustomed to clean hallways, to an ordered existence and regular rations. He hadn’t really realized how much his existence had changed, before now. 

Soundwave’s size alone kept the empties at bay, but his clean plating and medic-maintained joints attracted other attention. Resting mecha pushed themselves away from the walls, gauging every part of the big carrier with calculating optics. There were, Soundwave noted, almost no warframes here -- not like in Iacon, where the lowest strata was comprised mainly of mecha who’d returned from the war. 

A minibot with corroded armor and optics yellowed by the virus sticks made the first move, ghosting into the big mech’s path. “Capacitors need servicing, mech?” the mini inquired crudely. Soundwave stepped around him, and his gears ground as he jogged to keep up. 

“Negative,” said Soundwave, flatly, scanning down narrow, crooked alleyways lined with hatches, some of which irised entirely shut, while others had been warped by the recent changes to this landscape and no longer did so. There were three alleyways here; the most recent maps of the city showed two. 

“Really? Cos we got all kinda options here, mech. Anything ya want....” The tattered minibot -- there was so little of his topcoat left, it was impossible to say what color he’d once been -- reached up and attempted to slip his hand, very casually, into Soundwave’s subspace pocket. 

The shadows glinted with silver teeth. Ravage’s ebony and silver plating seemed to coalesce out of the shadows, the bladeframe prowling into view, every micron of him hackled in warning. A low, grating growl vibrated along the plating beneath the minibot’s pedes, rattled over rusted armor--and a cable lashed out, wrapping around that reaching hand with implacable strength.

Soundwave stopped. Looked down, as impassive as a Guardian. “Query: do you need that hand?” The cable squeezed, and bladed tips flared, glittering in an obvious threat. The big carrier tilted his helm. “Replacements, likely to be difficult to obtain.” Ravage prowled closer; scarlet optics cut sideways, to where several other mecha lurked in the shadows. The air seemed to thicken, hovering on the razored edge of fear and violence.

The minibot struggled, trying to yank his hand backwards, only to fail against Soundwave’s greater strength. “N-no--I mean, yeah, yeah I need it! I didn’t know--er, I’m sorry! I am! Learned my lesson, won’t touch ya no more, just got overeager … y-ya know how it is, right? Big shiny mech like you prolly got all sorts of attention--” The cable squeezed tighter and the minibot yelped. “--but not like that kind of attention! Good attention! P-pleasuremecha gotta be fallin’ all over themselves to cable up, I can tell, an--an I know where they are, if ya want one. A real one, I mean. Or something else ... a-anything else!” 

The minibot’s frantic, wheezing ventilations hung in the air as Soundwave considered it. Then, he let go.

“Your bargain, acceptable,” he said evenly. “Soundwave: requires guide to Binomial district.”

The minibot’s optics widened. “S-so you really did want a--?” Another growl from Ravage, and he thought better of what he was going to say. “Sure! Sure! I know the way, have for vorn. This way, um--Soundwave?”

Soundwave tilted his helm in acknowledgment. Then, as the minibot tried to back away, the carrier reached out to lay a heavy taloned hand upon the small mech’s battered pauldron. “Your assistance, appreciated.” Those talons tightened minutely, scraping. “Warning: your survival unlikely, if we are led into an ambush.”

“S-sure, no problem, ain’t nobody gonna touch you, not when you with me,” squeaked the minibot, making ‘go away’ gestures at the watching denizens of the slums. “It’s... it’s not far, just down that alley, make a left. This useta be the main route, right, before the latest changes, an’... I’ll go first. Uhm. Please...”

Soundwave released the smaller mech’s shoulder, uninterested in the minibot’s babble. The tattered little mech darted some paces away, and then hurried into the slums, forced to take two strides for every one of Soundwave’s. Accompanied by long-fanged shadows, Soundwave followed the mini into the depths of Kaon.


	5. Chapter 5

As promised, the metalware district was not far away. Crimson lights cast lurid shades across rough slab decking, and the jumbled stories and levels above leaned drunkenly against their neighbors. Binomial was an island of stability, relatively speaking, on a shifting plane -- the city changed its conformation rarely in this place, and mecha flocked here accordingly. Collapses, however, were common outside the more thickly travelled ways, leaving mecha to be dug from the rubble over cycles or orn. The ones for whom rescue came too late first were stripped of parts, and then went into the commercial smelting pits, rendered down for the minute quantity of rare elements their frames might still contain.

Here, at least, Soundwave’s maps were of some use, and he dismissed the minibot soon enough. The carrier paused a moment in a thick swath of shadows, and then more optics winged to his command, lithe frames flashing down alleys, searching in a widening net. Guided by sharper sensors than his own, Soundwave followed the crowds -- mecha come to gawk, come to find a piece of living metal with which to briefly share a berth.

Down one winding alley, very much like any of the others, Soundwave paused. He spread panels a little, briefly, double-checking for any sign of watchers. _//Ravage: is certain?//_ he asked, and received an affirmative from the bladeframe, who prowled the back entrance to the little warren.

Within a tight cross-network of girders, the flightframes bobbed their heads. _//I still believe there may be two spark signatures within,//_ Laserbeak put in. _//As well as the unusual concentration of protometal.//_

 _//Very well,//_ Soundwave replied, trusting their judgement. Their goal was within sight. Now he would just have to hope that the mech in question proved … persuadable.

 

***** 

 

The mech on Recline's thinning charging platform was, for the first time in vorns, free from pain, from the constant glitches that came with slow starvation and lack of maintenance. Wildbeat's protometal core was stagnant, little more than a slurry of corrupted and disintegrating nanites as he slowly deactivated from the inside out. Every joint was infiltrated with rust, and his processors were thinned to sillica wafers, their circuits stripped by desperate self-repair. Wildbeat, however ... felt none of it.

Recline had enough medical coding to make healthy mechs function optimally when he recharged them. That could never be the case with Wildbeat. Like the three others whose frames Recline had already dismantled this orn for the few remaining parts he could sell, Wildbeat had come to him for the one thing the berthformer could give -- a few joors of bliss and a final overload, in exchange for the bit of core energon and other resources Recline could harvest. It would spare Wildbeat the long and gruesome death of an empty.

Providing a peaceful deactivation had been one of the traditional functions of a berthformer, back when they had considered part of the medic class rather than luxury furnishings. It seemed a fitting way for Recline to spend his own final vorns. His training and specialized field emitters ensured that the pain of his own slow deactivation did not impact the sphere of peace in which he enveloped the mecha who extinguished on his platform. Like every other mech he had ever recharged, even those as cruel as the Overlord, Recline loved this mech in his own way, to the limits of his abilities.

Recline was aware of the signatures in the alley outside, his sensors always tuned to the possibility of interruption. In the Overlord's fortress, those sensors ensured that his master's recharge was not interrupted by the comings and goings of the other servants. Here, the vigilance took a more practical turn. Desperate mecha were always attempting to steal the frames of those he assisted with deactivation... and such thieves were by no means the most dangerous mecha in these slums.

Case in point: the mecha in the alley. They had strong fields, characteristic of mechanisms in optimal condition -- well maintained and with a regular supply of untainted energon. Even the strongest of those who abided in the depths of Kaon did not register like them.

The mecha of this district knew Recline, and some were quite protective of him due to the services he offered. None were present now.

Perhaps Megatron's forces had finally located the last vestiges of the Overlord's decadence, and Recline's own end had come. He could not say that he would not welcome it, even if it were not as peaceful or as kind as the end he was giving to Wildbeat.

Recline's intakes drew in a labored, wheezy ventilation, and with a final intermingling and stroking of Wildbeat's now serene field, he initiated the code that would overload the mech’s spark and systems a final time.

Rusted gears ground, Wildbeat jerked once against the mesh that cradled him. There was nothing left but bliss, a peace deeper than any he had ever known. The rising tide swept unprepared circuits, shorted internal breakers. And a single line of medical code, inserted deep into subsystems left unprotected by long-eroded firewalls, executed. Quietly, gently, Wildbeat’s lasercore and fuel pumps disengaged from the corroded spark chamber.

Wildbeat slumped, every tensor losing power, the only charge in his systems now Recline’s, easing the broken mech into quiet oblivion. Already corroded, a shell of itself, Wildbeat’s protometal could sustain its own spark for only a few moments. The containment field failed, flickered out. The spark within flared, questing, curious, feeling one last time the world it was leaving behind. Then, as if satisfied, it returned to the Well.

Recline held on to the empty frame for a few moments longer, then set about easing the remains from his platform. It took him half a klick to laboriously transform back into rootmode. “Thank you for waiting,” Recline said once his vocalizer had fully reassembled, respectfully inclining his helm towards the mech who filled the open hatch.

The mech stepped inside, ducking his helm to clear the top of the low hatchway, and straightened, his broad frame blocking almost all the light. Through an effort of will, Recline kept his field serene, his faceplates untroubled as the carrier--it had to be a carrier, with that distinctive frame--surveyed the tiny, dark space, Wildbeat’s graying frame, and Recline himself with a red-visored, impassive stare. It was far from the first time Recline had felt judged on his relative worth--or lack of it. But there was something in that look. Something distant, dispassionate, as if the mech had already counted the berthformer’s existence of so little note as to barely be worth processing.

Uncertain if he were facing a client or his executioner, Recline decided to play it safe. “Can I help you, Chronicler …?” He clasped soft, untaloned fingers in front of him, giving the mech a gently inquiring look.

The carrier took another step forward, and two flightframes dropped in through the hatchway, landing upon their master’s shoulders, wings tucked in deference to the tight quarters. Distracted by their appearance, his optics caught by their pristine scarlet and yellow plating, Recline almost didn’t notice the bladeframe that prowled in behind them, moving on silent, taloned pedes, a symphony of lethal silver and ebony.

“Affirmative. Designation: Soundwave,” the carrier said, his vocalizer oddly flat, the truncated words uninflected. “Your assistance, required.” The symbionts stayed silent, flightframes and bladeframe alike, watching with glittering crimson optics. “Soundwave: wishes to bargain for an item in your possession.”

Bargain? And what item? It was not as though Recline had anything beyond the grey, stripped shells in his small, partially collapsed hovel. And clearly the chronicler did not need to offer anything. He could take whatever he wished with the resources at his command, at least from a mech like Recline with nothing in the way or armor or defenses.

Recline carefully expanded his field, openly questioning. There was no point in trying to hide his capabilities, even as hampered as they currently were. There was little he could do to smooth and manipulate the fields surrounding his own that would not be immediately perceived by Soundwave.

He did not sense any duplicity or aggression, other than the tense mutual care and protectiveness of a tightly-bonded cohort. Perhaps Soundwave did truly intend to bargain.

"I'm not sure what I have that you would be in need of, but am always willing to offer my services to any mecha who do not wish me harm," Recline said carefully, his field open and obvious for them to read. Fulfilling his function, by whatever means he could, was all he truly had to offer, and all he truly wanted.

Soundwave’s regard was level, blank. Chronicler-investigators were by far the most common among the carrier class. They tended to prefer mobile, finely-crafted faceplates that allowed for the greatest range of expression. An investigator naturally made mecha feel at ease. Soundwave... did not. Not by a long shot.

“This cohort, willing to assist you in leaving Kaon,” the tall carrier said. “Passage, available to Iacon, or any other city. Energon, as well.”

Recline glanced down at his folded hands. “Whatever you imagine I possess -- it must be quite dear to you, that you would value it so highly,” he said, quietly. To smuggle Recline out of the city, past Senate blockades and Megatron’s patrols, warframes who would likely react poorly to the sight of a once-pampered Tower plaything... it was almost unimaginable.

The carrier inclined his helm in acknowledgement. “Soundwave, requires both confidentiality.... and a device in your possession.”

The berthformer glanced down at the scavenged frames, knowing even as he did that wasn’t what Soundwave meant. The mecha who came to him for a merciful deactivation were already stripped down, had already traded away everything they could function without. Even their vital internals were typically damaged, or in very poor shape.

Even if they hadn’t been, Recline certainly did not keep such parts for long. Anything of value had long been traded for the little raw energon they brought. What parts did Soundwave imagine he possessed, let alone ones valuable enough to....

….oh.

He reflexively took a step back, away from the carrier. “What … are you looking for?”

For the first time, the big carrier seemed to hesitate, pausing fractionally. Then he spoke. “Soundwave: requires a multi-phasic projective plane module. Such devices, rare; installed only in frametypes specializing in field and core code-manipulations. Code specialists, interrogator frametypes, both unlikely to relinquish this essential component.”

Thus, his arrival at the home of an outcast and desperate berthformer. Recline shivered. That module … was essential to his function. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to soothe a mech’s troubled fields, to isolate tangled coding, or generate the interference patterns that kept the world at bay, allowing even the most troubled mech a chance to recharge without the press of outside fields, outside troubles.

Without that module--he had no future. It wasn’t like he had the resources to undergo a reformat. Not to mention that the very idea being remade for any function other than the one he had been created for sent a surge of anxiety through his normally serene field.

He could deactivate... slowly... in Kaon, fulfilling his function to the best of his ability. Or he could try to make a new start in Iacon, but without the tools he needed to perform his function... which meant he might eventually deactivate there as well. Of course, the other option would be to deactivate quickly in the small hovel he now called home, if this carrier and his cohort decided to take the module by force.

And yet, as Recline considered that third option, he realized it was not, nor had ever been, what he desired. For the same reason he had not given up when Overlord turned him out in the first place, in punishment for the comfort and care he'd secretly given to those who'd suffered his master's cruelty.

The berthformer wanted to remain functioning. Even if he was no longer truly a berthformer. Surely there was still something he had to offer a world where suffering only seemed to grow each orn?

But that begged a different question.

"Who else will ease the pain of the mecha here if I go?"

Not that he expected the impassive Soundwave and his cohort of memory keepers to have an answer for that, or to care. That... was simply not their function.

Soundwave tilted his helm. “Most likely possibility: those who performed that function before you arrived,” he said. If any such mecha existed, which Soundwave doubted. Recline’s query was, in a sense, a strange one. When secure in his master’s Tower, far from these slums, the berthformer probably had never given a thought to those who slaved far below on the plains of Kaon.

And yet... Soundwave was no stranger to the core-level dissonance that could result from the termination of a mech’s function. When Soundwave’s tenure had been so abruptly ended, when doors to the historians’ wing had closed that final time behind him... no, leaving the place where one once had been valued, been needed--it was not an easy thing. And mecha like berthformers were even more intimately bound to their functions than chroniclers. But perhaps Recline could be made to see the greater possibilities, unlikely though they were. “Another Tower, best-situated to equip you with a new projective plane module, to reward your service. Additionally --” Soundwave paused, appearing to consider.

The silver and crimson symbiont rustled his wings. “If you truly wish to assist these mecha,” said the flightframe, vocalizer as finely tuned as Soundwave’s was not, “you would have far greater impact if you convinced a Tower cadre to spend their treasures to alleviate these sorrows, to provide new purpose to those bereft of a function.” It was a daring notion, one meant to tempt. Shaping a Tower’s political policies was not in a berthformer’s nature. Still... *this* berthformer had already proved himself uniquely adaptable, surviving where none of his class had ever dared to venture.

Recline, almost on automatic, smoothed the buzzing edges of his own field, running an algorithm to calm his processors, and considered the suggestion. He had tried... within the limits of his oaths and coding, to influence his master over the vorns, though with little success. He had certainly attempted to ease the suffering in the fortress in other ways. Perhaps he could indenture himself to another tower, and earn enough in time for a new module. And then... depending on how skillfully the new loyalty coding was written, he might be able to shape his new masters.

"How do you intend to use the module?" the berthformer asked, realizing this was the most important question of all. If Soundwave intended it to harm others... no, that would be a fundamental violation of Recline's coding. He tuned his sensory arrays to their widest range, to catch any flicker of deceit in the response.

Soundwave had obviously expected the question. “Module’s use, defensive only. Intended purpose, the protection of our cohort, other mecha.” The big carrier glanced down at his bladeframe, then back to the battered berthformer. “Further details, unnecessary and dangerous to your safety.”

“Soundwave will not abuse your gift, should you choose to give it,” the scarlet and silver flightframe added. “You must trust us when we say that our need is dire. Surely our presence here, in this place, is evidence enough of that?” Both carrier and symbiont’s fields were open, and despite his own reservations, Recline could not sense any false resonances in their words. Evasion, certainly. That was to be expected.

Defensive use... could still potentially harm another, it was true. Still, such use stretched, but did not violate his coding and oaths. Defense of his master, using the only tools at his disposal, had been permissible. And the symbionts of Soundwave's cohort were, in their own way, highly fragile, and rare.

Recline looked around at the partially-collapsed hovel, the dismantled frames and the greying one that was still nominally whole. He straightened to his full height, the metalogel under his mesh armor rippling slightly.

"I assume you have a medic available who can safely remove the module," he stated softly, allowing his field to communicate his acceptance of their offer: _use it well, and Primus forgive them all if this choice led to harm._

 

******

 

Over the next several vorn, the Kaon Arena flourished. Under the sponsorship of Polymetallic and the tacit approval of Lord Megatron, the damage from the assassination attempt upon the Overlord was not only been repaired, but the grime and neglect of many vorn was stripped away. Walls were repaired, ornamentation first replaced, then added. Worn foundations were reinforced, accommodations for gladiators and arena staff alike expanded. Vivid holoprojections proclaimed the latest bouts, the ascendant contenders and their challengers, and gladiators themselves became feted champions, paid tribute by lesser mecha after each victory. Kaon Arena flowered in Megatron’s shadow, rivalling its Golden Age heyday. The mecha of Kaon, flush with tribute exacted from lesser territories and less-defended neighbors, reveled in the greatness of their city and their warframes, as proved upon the frames and spilt energon of all challengers.

And the Lord High Protector, it seemed, also appeared to have taken notice.

The latest crop of recruits, Soundwave reflected, appeared to have a great deal of promise. The survival of new gladiators was always questionable, especially the mostly untrained civilian frametypes. But they’d had a great many more warframes come to their gates of late, applying for entrance, and the quality of the resulting bouts had likewise increased. This orn, Soundwave himself descended to the sands, ostensibly to stand guardian for Rumble and Frenzy, who once again had insisted upon drilling with the much larger mecha. In reality, Soundwave wished to more closely inspect the latest applicants; he had his suspicions as to their origins.

Over the intervening vorn, he’d also learned more about close-quarters combat that he ever expected--often from the unlikeliest sources. Gladiators, unlike the more standardized ranks of Cybertron’s military, came in all frametypes, all sizes, and Soundwave had learned a great many techniques in sparring with those mecha. Rumble and Frenzy had learned even more--the two pugnacious mechkin had never quite figured out the difference between sparring and outright brawling, and made up for their lack of size and firepower in sheer betaloned aggressiveness and the willing application of dirty tricks.

Leaning on a railing, Soundwave watched from above as his two mechkin scattered before the might of a frontliner four times their height and ten times their combined mass -- only to seize each end of a heavy chain, buried in the iron sands. They both heaved, and the chain popped up out of the sand like a razorsnake. The frontliner crashed down, kneecapped by his own speed, and the mechkin leaped atop him, their pounding fists leaving deep dents in the bigger mech’s armor.

In the main ring, Demolishor stalked the ragged line of new recruits, roaring at those who stood wrong, or moved wrong, or who just *looked* at him wrong, and Primus help those who didn’t have the correct answer ready for his snarled questions. All but a few were warframes, and all but a handful were from outside Kaon. That, in and of itself, wasn’t unusual. However, most had already been through some military training, albeit long ago, which attracted Soundwave’s notice.

In a way, Megatron had been placed in a difficult situation. His warframes, save for a core force sustained by the income of the Lord Protector’s own holdings, had been out of service for more than a thousand vorn. Most had long since replaced combat modules with other, more mundane coding: mining, bodyguarding, even scavenging algorithms and datamaps. Many had suffered corrupted memory files from poor maintenance. Even those not in need of repairs still needed extensive retraining -- and Megatron’s active troops had no time to provide such remedial services.

One thing was obvious: this newest batch of recruits were all frametypes of which Megatron stood in substantial need. Unless Soundwave missed his guess... the Lord Protector was using the Kaon Arena to train the nucleus of an army. Whether that boded well or ill for the arena... Soundwave could not say.

“Alla you fragged up the Tr!klcctch back a few vorn ago, saw plenty of action. Fraggers think you’re hot scrap. Don’t you? DON’T YOU?” One of the nervous recruits nodded hesitantly, and found himself the unfortunate focus of Demolishor’s line of questioning. “Been keeping in shape knocking each other around, maybe putting the fear of Primus in some civvies, staying in fighting trim? Huh?” Again the warframe nodded, looking even less certain, and massively powerful talons clamped down on a ridge of his chestplate, hoisting him effortlessly into the air.

 _//Hey, Chronicler. You up for some exercise?//_ Demolishor asked, even as he continued to harangue the unfortunate recruit.

Soundwave considered the offer. It would hardly be the first time he had participated in such bouts, although he did so only rarely, preferring to keep his abilities relatively unknown. Still, if there was one thing he had learned in his vorn at the arena, it was that carefully-considered violence had its place, especially when trying to command unruly warframes.

 _//Affirmative,//_ he replied, turning to make his way down onto the sands. The multi-levelled rings that made up the arena floor were as familiar to him now as the Academe had ever been. Which meant that he knew the terrain, while the new recruits did not, something that could be used to his advantage.

Demolishor turned back to his chosen victim. “So ya think yer something special, huh? Big shot scary warframe, here to show us how the big bots fight?” He dropped the new recruit, who landed on his aft in a clatter of metal. “You know what? Show me. Show *me* what ya got, and just maybe I’ll give ya a shot to show all of Kaon.” He jerked a thumb-talon at the advancing carrier. “All you gotta do is kick around one civvie. Easy enough for a big-treaded bot like yourself, right?”

“B-but that’s…” the recruit began to stammer, then quailed as Demolishor rounded on him.

“Did I tell ya to think? I gave you an ORDER, warframe! You think the Lord High Protector’s gonna be impressed by a bot who grovels in front of any civvie who says he’s in charge? Huh? You think I’M gonna be impressed? Get up and take him out, or by Primus, I’ll--”

Demolishor continued to bellow as the recruit scrambled to his feet, backing away. Then, squaring his frame, the big recruit turned, looking over to where Soundwave waited--and charged.

Long-range armaments were disabled in new recruits, at least until they’d proven that they were capable of blowing the scrap out of only their opponents and not the arena itself. This, too, was something for which Soundwave was grateful. For all he had learned, he was still at a severe disadvantage in ranged combat, preferring to use surprise and disorientation to close with his opponents. Here, unfortunately, he had neither … so he would have to count on the warframe’s overconfidence instead.

The mech was a medium-heavy grounder. Plated in battered purple and green, he was an all-purpose ground support warframe, faster than a tankframe but slower--and more heavily-armored--than a typical frontliner. Soundwave took a step back, as if backpedalling away from the much larger mech’s charge. Roaring, the warframe swung, aiming a crushing blow at the carrier’s lightly-armored helm--

\--but Soundwave was no longer there. Pivoting into that sweeping punch, he ducked inside the warframe’s reach, using the recruit’s own momentum as he stabbed inward with razored talons, up under the gap between battlemask and gorget. A yank, and Soundwave ripped free a sparking, leaking handful of cabling, sweeping under a flailing arm to hammer a blow upon the back of that newly-disoriented helm.

The recruit roared as he staggered upright... and one of his primary optics shorted out. No warframe kept their primary processing cores in their helm, let alone their targeting or other combat hardware -- but losing a handful of cervical cabling did disable sensors, and would slow even an experienced fighter. Which the recruit was not. Still, he’d retained good instincts. Rather than clutching at the injury, he shifted his armor up and forward, as it should have been positioned in the first place.

With more caution this time, the warframe rounded on Soundwave. His fingers folded in and transformed, slotting together and flattening down into a long crescent - the blade of an energon axe. He circled, forcing Soundwave to turn, trying to box the carrier in against one of the arena’s massive pillars.

Soundwave let him. A quick query to Rumble, still sparring in his own ring, returned exactly the information Soundwave needed. The next time the recruit lunged, axe drawn back, the carrier was ready. Soundwave ducked under the strike, the axe flashing micrometers over his head to slice with a violent hiss into the overlapping plating of the column. Already scarred and notched, the arena’s walls were notorious for binding blades, and this one was no exception. Darting under the cursing recruit’s arm as he struggled to free his weapon, Soundwave spun his own momentum into a kick, landing a crushing blow against the side of the warframe’s kneejoint.

The joints of warframes were so well-armored, most strikes there did little damage. But Rumble had an eye for mecha, for physical weaknesses and strengths. He’d noticed the trace of rust around that joint, the ripple in the armor over the underlying tensors. Even if he didn’t have the experience to know exactly what those signs meant... Soundwave did.

This time the recruit screamed, a high thin screech escaping before he could shut down his vocalizer. Even the mecha still standing in line could hear the metal-shear tearing of pieces forced out of alignment. Field flaring black with embarrassed fury, the recruit wrenched his weapon out of the pillar and rounded on his elusive opponent. He had routed extra power to the plasma axe, Soundwave noted--enough that droplets of liquid iron wetted the crescent, dripping silver into the sands. The warframe swung, the blade hissing viciously through the air.

Soundwave dropped, feeling the sizzle of superheated atmosphere as the blade scythed over backplates and folded sensory arrays. He dived to one side, rolling, ducking each new brutal swing, the warframe using blade and sheer bulk in tandem to push the lighter, less-armored carrier back across the arena. A glancing hit scythed deep into one pauldron, sending him reeling backwards. Sensing victory, the recruit lunged forward, intent upon cleaving Soundwave in two.

Soundwave staggered, falling to one knee, and then uncoiled two primary cables outward in a silvery whiplash of speed. They wrapped that descending arm, redirecting it, simultaneously delivering a crippling spike of energy into the conduit there. The weapons power conduit of a warframe was too thickly armored to pierce; Soundwave couldn’t hack the controls. But then, that was not his intent.

The cables released, disappearing as swiftly as they had emerged--Soundwave had learned the hard way not to keep datacables within reach of an enraged warframe--but the damage had already been done. The energy spike cascaded through tensors, transformation circuits, and into the already-overcharged blade. The plasmic edge had nowhere to vent the extra energy, the metal crackling and sparking--and then the blade exploded, throwing molten shrapnel in all directions.

The unlucky warframe staggered, falling to one knee as he roared in agonized fury, clutching at the slagged remnants of his right arm. “You fragger! I’m gonna--” he bellowed. Then stopped short as Soundwave stepped forward, the barrel of his sonic cannon humming with charge and angled unerringly at the other mech’s cracked helm.

“This battle, now over. Soundwave: victorious.”

The recruit stared up, fear and disbelief written clearly on his faceplates. Chroniclers were known -- by those few who even recognized the frametype -- to be durable, but they were far from being a civilian security type, and they were not by any means meant for war. This recruit had likely seen countless vorn of combat against creatures who were the stuff of hatchling horror tales. And yet, somehow, he’d fallen to a chronicler in combat. It was ... incomprehensible.

The watching line of recruits watched with newfound respect, optics almost as wide. Everything Demolishor had been telling them -- about not picking fights with the civilian gladiators, treating the civvie staff with respect, and the need to work until their solenoids cracked just to regain a shadow of their former abilities -- all of had seemed like typical drill-sergeant slag, not quite real. This demonstration drove the lesson home.

“Yield, fragger!” shouted Demolishor, stalking forward. “Nice n’ loud! Ain’t nobody gonna lean in close to hear yer lilith-bird whispers in the heat of combat. This were real training, Soundwave’d keep on pounding you, till there was nothing left to send to the medics. Yield, ya piece of smelting-pit scum!”

The recruit trembled. “I... I yield!” he finally managed -- the first time he had ever said those words before a civilian.

“Good! Now go tell the medics you’ve got the processors of a scraplet-infested drone, and ask ‘em -- nicely! -- to put you the slag back together. Go!” Demolishor grabbed the recruit by a shoulder-spar and hauled him upright, then shoved him staggering towards Relay. The far-smaller service mech took the warframe’s weight without complaining, helping the staggering mech towards the medbay.

Demolishor rounded on the rest of the recruits. “Any of you other fraggers want a crack at a civvie? Any of you got a problem with the way the arena’s set up? This is your one and only chance. No? None of ya? Then pair off, I wanna see some sparring outta you--”

 _//Lotta rusted joints in this batch,//_ Demolishor sent to Soundwave, even as he continued his verbal harangue. _//Seems like more of the recruits have this kinda damage, recently.//_

Soundwave inclined his helm a little and retreated, leaving the hot iron-sand ring to Demolishor and his recruits. From the official newscasts, it was difficult to tell if conditions among the lowest strata of mecha in distant cities was getting worse. Perhaps they were. _//Query, these mecha still suitable as gladiators?//_ he asked.

 _//Once we knock the rust off their gearboxes and outta their processors? Most of ‘em might make it. They were good troops, once. But... they’ve all got a big chip on their engine blocks, lotta resentment against civilian frametypes. Didn’t used to see that either -- not this much.//_ Demolishor hesitated. _//Ya know why we’re gettin’ so many new warframed recruits, right?//_

Soundwave climbed into the stands, checking on where Rumble and Frenzy were still tumbling about in their ring. They had apparently transitioned from pounding on their opponent to pounding on each other; Frenzy had his brother’s helm in a painful-looking headlock, while their original opponent stood uncertainly to one side, as if unsure whether to intervene.

 _//Affirmative,//_ he answered Demolishor. _//Lord Megatron’s intentions, now clear. Recruitment patterns, well established.//_ No official support for the arena had ever come from the Lord High Protector. Yet somehow, suppliers mysteriously had become a great deal more amenable to negotiations, while the usual permitting and other bureaucratic barriers had disappeared. The Towers that had shown the most initiative in sponsoring arena events and gladiators had also seen their own fortunes rise accordingly. One did not have to be a Praxian strategist to see what was happening _. //Kaon Arena, now a training ground for Kaon warframes.//_ Or Decepticons, as some of the loyalists had begun calling themselves, in defiance of Senate edicts, openly proclaiming their pride in their Lord Protector.

 _//Yeah. Not a bad thing, I suppose.//_ Uncharacteristically, Demolishor hesitated, the channel wavering a little as he bellowed at a recruit that had wandered too far out of line. _//I’ve been re-commissioned. Got word a cycle ago; they’re offering me full reinstatement as a first-ranked dux.//_

Privately, Soundwave thought that Demolishor’s ‘offer’ had actually been closer to an order; the line between the two tended to be vanishingly thin whenever high-level legati were involved. Still, it was obvious that Demolishor intended to go. Which was understandable, even if it did leave Soundwave with a problematic gap in his event scheduling. Demolishor was one of the most reliable veteran gladiators they had.

 _//Soundwave: is aware,//_ the carrier said in reply. Then paused. _//Demolishor, also asked for a five-orn extension.//_ Which was something Soundwave had not yet been able to puzzle out. For the very spark of him, he could not imagine why Demolishor would do anything that might jeopardize a placement with the Lord High Protector.

Demolishor didn’t appear to be overly surprised-- you didn’t live at the arena long before you got used to Soundwave knowing more than he should. _//Just enough to get this batch of recruits started. Maul’s already pretty good with the newbies. As soon as he’s outta the medbay, I’ll make sure he has all the training modules.//_ The tankframe fell silent for a moment, while he applied correction liberally to a pair of recruits via the time-honored technique of banging their helms together.

Soundwave glanced down at the huge tankframe in surprise. Warframes often carried a great deal of loyalty coding, yes -- but primarily to the ruling dyad and their own units, not to a gladiatorial institution, much less to a stray cohort of Chroniclers who’d found themselves running one. _//Soundwave, appreciates your consideration,//_ said the carrier.

Accustomed also to Soundwave’s terseness, Demolishor took no offence, simply returned a simple glyph of acknowledgement -- colored with enough regret to give Soundwave pause. _//One other thing. I’m not a historian or nothing, but... I’ve been doing this a long time.//_ Down on the sands, Demolishor bellowed at a recruit, swept the mech’s feet right out from under him with a single kick, frighteningly fast for a frame so large. _//And I’ve been thinking... if they’re calling up relics like me, this ain’t just grandstanding. Not for much longer, anyway. This smells like war. I’m just... well. Watch your back, is all. Yours and all of them technimal-mecha’s.//_

Soundwave had long since reached the same conclusion. But hearing it spoken so bluntly somehow lent an air of foreboding to the words. The carrier cast his gaze over the empty arena stands, the dust and spilled energon below, the running figures of his two newest symbionts, engaged in some game of chase and tumble.

_//Soundwave, acknowledges.//_

_\------_

_Huge thanks to Femme4jack, who let us use her wonderful character Recline.  Femme also wrote most of him, too!  We're honored to've had her as a coauthor for this segment._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Femme4jack's beautiful Recline series can be found in the Tales of Recline the Berthformer, at http://archiveofourown.org/series/17979. A thousand thank you's to Femme for not only letting us use Recline, but writing him as well! This Recline may not be entirely in-continuity with the official Recline -- he's just making a very welcome guest appearance. 
> 
> Recline's device is based off a real mathematical object called a real projective plane. More information is available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_projective_plane


	6. Chapter 6

One by one, the veteran gladiators left the Kaon Arena in answer to Megatron’s call.

The recruits they left behind fought harder still, shedding their energon furiously in the hope that they too might catch the optic of one of Megatron’s legati. As Megatron’s ranks grew in strength, he began deploying his forces with greater regularity, crushing blockades, routing Senate conscripts.

The stalemate lasted for over a vorn. Long enough for Kaon to settle ever more firmly under the Lord Protector’s control, and for the other city-states of Cybertron to either choose sides or maintain a cautious--and well-armed--neutrality, according to their individual mandates.

Then the balance of power tipped yet again. This time Megatron struck out boldly, staging his first raid into Iaconian-held territory, seizing Tower shipping platforms and the goods upon them. The raid was unquestionably lucrative; the shipment of specialized mining equipment would have done much to revitalize the beleaguered mining industries of Yuss -- now those parts would do the same for the mining districts of Kaon.

The Senate, predictably, was far more enraged by the theft than they’d ever been by the killings. Their broadcast vitriol redoubled, harangues and debates in every dialect of Cybertron, and a multitude of ordinances and penalties were proposed against a defiant Kaon and its Lord.

Neither proved to be much of a deterrent.

The Lord High Protector took another shipping node shortly thereafter, expanding his reach. This time, the reward was a cache of energon. Most of the energon went to fuel Kaon’s burgeoning forces of warframes, but the size of the shipment was enormous, with more than enough left over to pad civilian allotments, and from there to wash into the underground markets. The ensuing celebrations rocked the streets of Kaon; mecha with credits to spare for the first time in vorns flocked to watch Kaon’s gladiators, bringing tiny cubes of highgrade along to sip in the stands.

For two orns in a row, capitalizing on the flush of liquidity in the city, the Kaon Arena ran one event after another. Huge elaborate affairs and dirty brawls, histories and comedies--the arena performed them all. The nonstop run of events stretched the limits of the arena’s expanded medical team, even as they filled the arena’s coffers. And still the arena’s popularity grew.

New buildings grew up across Kaon, habitations that allowed the unfortunate to move in from the more dangerous parts of Kaon’s plains, sweeping civic halls, training facilities, and more. Even civilian frames were able to obtain allotments -- albeit often in the mines or other unsuitable professions, filling in for the warframes now seeking placements in the Arena or Megatron’s growing forces.

And Kaon’s population of Chroniclers grew. During the last Golden Age, Kaon had been home to over a million mecha. Of those mecha, there had been at most a hundred and fifty carriers, plus their symbionts. Now, the resident chronicler population were almost thirty times that, with over four thousand carriers and eighteen thousand symbionts all living within a few filum of the Arena, all associated with it to some degree. Soundwave’s best estimates suggested that their numbers represented nearly a full quarter of all Chroniclers still active on Cybertron.

With so many optics and audials scanning the streets, no rumor was beyond Soundwave’s hearing. And underneath the celebrations, swept along with the ebb and flow of the mecha through Kaon, came the stories.

The rumors seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere: whispered over encrypted comms by the mecha scrounging among Kaon’s outskirts, sourceless data sold by unregistered databrokers, scare-tales told with gleeful abandon by adventurous Towerlings. The details shifted, changed, as mutable and inchoate as protometal. The core, however, was always the same: an empty who was not an empty, a mech without a cohort, who wandered places no empty would dare tread. A mech with leaking, ragged empty sockets where his optics once had been, audials and sensory panels clawed away; who could pluck the darkest secrets from a warframe’s cortex, or force a starving mech to hand over the last drops of his energon.

The stories came from Tarn, from Praxus, from Vos, spreading out like eddies in the mech’s wake. Whispers of a creature that was not a mech at all, but a spark-reaver--a monster whose very touch could rip a spark from its chamber. The spawn of Unicron Himself, a hunter come to stalk a world no longer under the guardianship of Prime and Protector, the empty frames and broken minds he left in his wake a testament to the power of the Unmaker.

The chroniclers of Kaon heard the whispers, learned the rumors. They passed them on to Soundwave, who noted that with each passing orn the stories become more detailed, the encounters less fantastic and more believable ... at least to one who knew what was coming for them.

It would be impossible to stop Parametric from entering Kaon. Not now, with the entire city flush with mecha glorying in their newfound wealth and thousands of refugees entering every day. They might, if they were lucky, be forewarned of his arrival, given the mech’s obvious madness … but even that was an assumption, given the unknowable limits of the mad carrier’s power.

Not that it mattered. Soundwave did not intend to trust the fate of his cohort to luck.

 

*****

 

Tiny talons scritched at Soundwave’s pede as Transit climbed atop it. “Hi,” said the symbiont, hugging onto one of the tall carrier’s pede-stabilizers. “Did you call me?” Transit liked the way his plating looked against Soundwave’s deep blue. It was too much to hope, he knew, that the tall carrier would court him -- a cohort of seven was already terribly large. And a dozen other carriers already had displayed interest. Still. A little flirtation wouldn’t hurt anything. Provided that Ravage wasn’t around.

Soundwave folded himself down onto one kneejoint, visored gaze fixed on the trusting, finely-crafted faceplates of the little symbiont. “Affirmative. Soundwave, wishes to discuss plans for the future, matters related to Parametric.”

Transit sobered, clinging tighter. “I almost started to think.... Is he... did you hear anything? About him?”

“Perhaps,” said Soundwave, his field deep and even, giving nothing away. “If Parametric seeks out the Arena, your assistance, potentially required.”

“Of course!” said Transit bravely, worried anew. “Anything.”

Soundwave nodded. “Soundwave: has been preparing defenses -- means of incapacitating Parametric, should Parametric refuse aid.” He reached down to draw the blunt edge of one talon over the symbiont’s orbital ridge, stroking down the armored neck. “However, these defenses, untested. Their protection, possibly inadequate. Soundwave: proposes to install specialized firewall modifications. End result of this coding, a total systems-lock of any carrier attempting a hardline with Transit, until help arrives.”

“Install -- in me,” said Transit, slowly. “You... you don’t think he’s gotten any better, do you?”

“Negative,” Soundwave said flatly, his answer leaving no room for uncertainty.

Transit leaned into the touch, clinging tight in lieu of rolling himself into a ball. “I... what software? I didn’t think... didn’t know there was anything that could do that.” To wall himself off, to punish his carrier for even attempting to forge a connection … it felt wrong on a fundamental level, the antithesis of everything he was. Even if Parametric … wasn’t truly his carrier anymore. But his own memory told him Soundwave was right. He could no longer trust Parametric to protect him. So he would have to trust Soundwave, and take steps to protect himself.

“Cohort, quite knowledgeable,” the carrier stated, his field as still and unfathomable as a deep pool. Transit nodded hesitantly. Ravage or Laserbeak, of course--elder symbionts knew a multitude of things now lost to time. “These defenses, require utmost secrecy. If Transit agrees to this installation, no other must know.”

Transit hesitated--then, surrendering to the necessity of it, nodded silently. “I understand,” he said, curling downward, looking at his own claws instead of the carrier’s faceplates. “Just--the software can be removed later, right? After--after this is over?” As much as it felt like a betrayal, as much as he secretly hoped Soundwave could help Parametric, could bring him back from the dark place that mod had taken him, so that he could be Transit’s Master once more--he had to face the very real possibility that Parametric might not survive. If he didn’t … Transit couldn’t wall himself away forever. Not if he wished to live, and carry on his Master’s memory.

Soundwave nodded. “Affirmative,” he said, resting talon-tips lightly upon that downturned head. “Your well-being, and your survival, essential. Keeping you from choosing a new carrier, not our intention.”

“A-all right.” Transit lifted his head into that touch, laying his muzzle against the warm plating of Soundwave’s pede, no longer caring if anyone else was there to see. “I trust you, Soundwave. If it helps Parametric--I’ll do it.”

 

*****

It was, Soundwave knew, not a perfect plan. However, given how little they knew about what Parametric could do, what the former carrier might have become, it was the best he could do. Ten vorn had given him time to prepare, to lay stratagems and prepare defenses that no one else in the arena, outside of his own cohort, even knew existed. Against a creature that could conceivably pluck the thoughts out of any mech’s cortex, ignorance would be Soundwave’s greatest weapon. Ignorance and, ironically enough, Red Alert’s paranoia.

The security mech had been told only what Soundwave had needed for him to know, of course. That a crazed and well-armed carrier was rumored to be on his way; that he had been given untried, untested field-reading modifications that made him far more dangerous than any normal chronicler. That should this mech reach the arena, Red Alert’s duty was to stop him at all costs.

Soundwave did not need to say anything more; Red Alert’s own glitched coding did the rest, sending the security mech into a frenzy of extra checks, tightened security measures and general paranoia. This, of course, also meant that Soundwave was responsible for managing that paranoia, keeping the arena functioning somewhat-normally under the onslaught of new security measures. But as an early-warning system, Red Alert had no parallel. And with a full complement of warframed gladiators to hand, that warning, Soundwave hoped, would not be in vain.

All of his preparations were in place, his plans laid ...

... and then the world changed once more.

 

***** 

 

This time, it came in the form of an edict from Optimus Prime himself: guaranteed amnesty and allotments for all warframes, from lowest scavenger to highest legati, who swore their allegiance to Cybertron and to their Prime.

The proclamation was simple, lean and spare and powerful in comparison to the vitriolic rantings of the Senate -- writ, Soundwave knew, by a different hand. It extended to the Arena’s warframes, to most of the mecha who served them.

And it extended to the Lord High Protector.

Megatron’s silence in the wake of that edict was deafening. Warframes -- including Megatron himself -- were coded for service to the Prime and to Cybertron. The war was over, the commentators whispered. This cruel conflict, pitting warriors against the mecha they should have defended, was finally over. They could have peace once more... predicated only upon Megatron’s eventual surrender to the power he was sparked to serve.

Gladiators and servicemecha spoke in guarded comms, or stood close in quiet conversation. Soundwave and his chroniclers did what they could, offering enticements, enjoining the warframes, staff and gladiator alike, to remain at least until after the next major bout. Little more than a cycle after the announcement, however, Bulkhead was the first to approach Soundwave, stopping him in an empty hallway. The tankframe shifted his massive weight from one pede to the other. “Chr-- Soundwave. I gotta talk to ya. Me and a couple of the others, Hubcap, Tap-Out .... we …“

“Bulkhead: intends to leave,” Soundwave said impassively, letting no sign of his unease show. Bulkhead was fidgeting enough for both of them, his field rippling with commingled uncertainty and stubborn resolve. The big warframe dipped his helm in something that might have been a nod, or might have been a shrug.

Either way, it seemed the outcome would be the same.

“Yeah--yeah, we are.” Bulkhead straightened up, inasmuch as a mech of his bulk was able. “I know things are better n’ they were. And I’ll miss the little medic. But … the Prime, he’s calling us. He *wants* us.” We’ll finally matter again, and not for just rippin’ each other apart for no reason, yanno?”

“Your decision, swiftly made,” Soundwave noted, looking for some kind of weakness, some manner of leverage he could use. "This offer, possibly a trap. Senate’s intentions, to lure warframes away from the safety of Kaon for execution.”

Bulkhead’s faceplates shifted into a stubborn glower. “It’s the Prime. He wouldn’t do that ta us.”

Soundwave thought about making another sally, to try and find a chink in that armor, but a nanoklik of reflection told him the attempt would be futile. In this, he was battling against Bulkhead’s core coding, the loyalty every warframe was sparked with to Prime and Protector. Suborning that loyalty was not necessarily impossible, but required far more resources and time than Soundwave could muster, and was risky besides. Warframes who thought they were being manipulated tended to identify the originators of those manipulations as a threat, and react accordingly.

“Soundwave: acknowledges,” Soundwave said finally. “Bulkhead’s absence problematic, but workable. Final energon allotment, available upon official removal from gladiator roster.” He tilted his helm, as if receiving a comm. “Flipsides: would like to bid you goodbye.” He pinged his symbiont. There was the slim possibility that the mechkin might yet be able to convince Bulkhead, if not the others, to stay. The probability of that outcome, however, was barely in the single digits, and not something on which Soundwave could rely.

Still, perhaps he could leverage the tankframe’s attachments for something. “Soundwave: would appreciate Bulkhead convincing fellow gladiators to stagger their departures, to lessen impact on arena operations.”

Bulkhead hunched lower as he received Flipsides’ plaintive comm. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll... go talk to ‘im. And to them. I mean, the other gladiators.” The tankframe studied his scuffed pede for a moment. “Listen. I’m... I’m sorry. Soon as I can get someone’s audial over there, I’m gonna tell ‘em what you did here. Organizin’, buildin’ things and scrap. That stuff’s important, even in an army. Civvie or not, they’ll haveta take you.”

Soundwave arched a brow ridge. Offering amnesty to warframes -- who, at worst, might have committed a few murders -- was politically expedient, yes. Offering the same to a single rogue chronicler who’d personally killed at least six mecha and slain dozens of others via driller, massively disrupted Iacon’s mining operations, exposed a Senate plot, sparked the largest riot in centivorn, trained troops for Megatron, and participated in the overthrow of the Overlord... was something else entirely. Attracting the attention of powerful Iaconian mecha would not serve his cohort now. “Soundwave, is not certa... erk!” his statement cut off in a squawk of feedback as the tankframe lumbered forward, reached out -- frighteningly fast, for something so massive -- and clasped Soundwave in a hard embrace.

Soundwave froze, unable in the disorientation of the moment to determine if he were being attacked -- but Bulkhead let him go after a moment, stepped back, and nodded once. Then the huge tankframe turned and lumbered away, leaving Soundwave alone with his shock... and for once, without a single coherent calculating thread.

 

*****

 

The arena hemorrhaged fighters.

Not all left, and not all at once -- but as word returned that the amnesty was true, the trickle became a flood. One gladiator this cycle, three the next, a medic after that, then five servicemecha. Worse, the taste for bloodsport had gone out of Kaon -- the city-state’s mecha watched holovids instead, canvassing the datanets, waiting for some sign from their Lord High Protector. Red Alert glitched more with every passing cycle, torn between his duty to the Prime and his responsibilities to the arena, and Soundwave bent his will to keeping the security-mech thoroughly occupied. The arena coffers were full, his Chroniclers still adequately supported by their Tower patrons. Soundwave could afford to wait for a time--but not for long.

Four orn after the Prime’s announcement, the Lord High Protector broke his silence. Soundwave was on the arena grounds, arguing over a parts shipment several joints short when the comm flooded every datanet in Kaon. The announcement was sourceless, powerful, with the whole of the city as its epicenter, the message a radiating tidal wave of defiance washing over the entirety of Cybertron.

_//Mecha of Cybertron -- the time has come to choose._

_Your Prime offers peace, offers forgiveness and unity. Yet do not be deceived. For not once does he mention the cost of that peace--the cost of propping up old orders corroded from within, of bowing your helms once more in order to beg scraps discarded by a gluttonous Senate and corrupted Towers._

_Your Prime has offered you his protection. Where was this protection before, when obsolescence was forced upon us, when battle-brothers lay guttering and broken beneath the pedes of the Towers? This is your Prime’s peace; this is his hollow protection._

_We have waited--for endless vorn, we have waited. Now I will wait no longer. I will not bow my helm before an impotent Prime. I will not play the slave to a decadent and dying empire. I will not believe empty promises of reconciliation. I am the Lord High Protector of Cybertron, and I will fight to preserve my people. And I welcome all, warframe and civilian alike, who no longer wish to crawl beneath the dictates of the Senate -- all with the spark to stand with me and declare: we will no longer be deceived!//_

Every mech in the arena came to a halt. They stood, shocked and still, as those echoes faded into data distance, the missive picked up and rebroadcast all across the planet, cast upon entangled particles to every corner of the empire.

What came after was just as consuming -- rallying points, orders, supplies requisitions and command movements, all issued within joor of that pronouncement. Megatron had been waiting for this, Soundwave realized; must have planned for this all along. He meant to militarize the entirety of Kaon. Every mech who chose to remain ... the Lord Protector would find a use for them. Either as part of his army, the foundation upon which he could mount his defiance--or as cannon fodder.

The war was upon them, and it would no longer be possible to remain neutral--not if they wished to survive. Kaon Arena would not be a sanctuary for his cohort for much longer, or for the thousands of other Chroniclers who’d sought shelter here. Soundwave needed to move, to lay his plans--

\--and then his calculations were interrupted again, this time by a rapid series of high-priority pings from Red Alert. The security head was as frantic as Soundwave had ever seen him, his normally detailed glyphs now laden with so many alert-battle-warning modifiers that they were almost unintelligible.

_//Alert, Soundwave, I have a hit, multiple camera hits, the movements are unmistakable, a Chronicler-carrier like you said, but different, it’s bad, he’s just walking towards the arena and no one’s noticing, I don’t know how they’re not noticing, he’s--he’s--we need to intercept, to attack! I need your orders, sir! He’s almost at the gates, our active defenses are hot, are ready to fire, I can--//_

_//Calm,//_ Soundwave ordered, even as he spread sensory panels, accessing the arena surveillance net for himself. He threw himself into the network, tapping into every recording drone and sensor-node, embracing the rush of familiar data. _//Your instructions, already given. Follow first contact plan, revise subsequent responses based on Parametric’s actions.//_

 _//Yessir!//_ came Red Alert’s response, his glyphs firming, focusing. The turrets came online, cannons swivelling--all of them focussed upon the battered, ragged creature that stalked towards the main gate, the tattered carrier whose datacables weaved unfocused in the air, a serpentine halo of blades and dataspikes. The main gates began to rumble shut, energon crowd-barriers snapping into existence to wall off the approach.

As instructed, Red Alert didn’t try to make contact, to give any warnings. Soundwave felt the surge of activations through the arena battlenet, a dim echo of Red Alert’s resolve--

\--and then the cannons fired.

 

*****

 

Chaos erupted.

All around Soundwave, whispering mecha fell silent at the first rattling cough of heavy weapons. Mecha on the far side of the riot barriers fell back with shocked cries. The arena datanet, already flooded with the Lord High Protector’s orders and dispositions, crackled with short-range comms and demands for information.

Embedded in the arena sensor net, Soundwave watched everything that happened outside the gate.

He watched as the mecha crowding the arena’s vast main entrance -- intending to enter or exit on business -- went mad. He watched as two of them, both armored gladiators, threw themselves at the turret placements, their bodies nothing more than living shields. He watched as half a dozen other mecha walked straight into the energy barriers... and kept walking, through an electric shock that should have left a mech unconscious. Smoking, jerking like empties, they fell between the closing gates, stopping the massive grinding portals with their own bodies.

The gates screeched, ground to a halt, crushing mecha between them. And Parametric stepped into the Kaon Arena.

The carrier was less than the shadow of a mech, a tattered thing, a horror from a sparkling tale. Ragged, eaten by metal rot, his cables weaved around him, every tip rusted solid into a dataspike or a blade. The stubby panels at his back were simply gone, broken off so long ago the stumps were fused masses, crusted with cracked and bubbled metal, as if self-repair had attempted to heal the damage, only to have new growths torn away. The carrier’s armor hung loose on a frame that had eaten itself away from the inside out, rust boiling up like cancer along even major spars. And his visor... was gone, nothing but a cracked rim where the protection had been clawed away. Beneath, there was nothing left to protect; the remnants of optics sparked fitfully, nothing left but tiny crushed bulbs and exposed wiring, snaking tubes punctured, seeping, leaving lines of coolant down begrimed, corroded faceplates.

Ruthlessly co-opting channels, muting out all other traffic, Red Alert fired orders over the datanet. The medbay initiated emergency quarantine procedures, heavy door hatches rolling shut, sealing away the medics and the wounded. Gladiators were mobilized in defense of the arena, though those that remained responded slower than they should have. Already preoccupied with the Protector’s announcement, they hesitated, fighting to make sense of this sudden intruder alert. Still, the discipline of the arena, the unknowing routines that Soundwave had drilled into them over a decavorn, held true; the nearest warframes moved to intercept, even as they fired questions back at Red Alert.

Soundwave reached out, relayed tightly-encrypted instructions to the security mech, who responded immediately.

 _//Engage the intruder with ranged fire only,//_ Red Alert barked. _//All mecha, keep your distance. Do NOT close into melee range!//_

Parametric was too far gone to be reasoned with--that was obvious. He was also just as dangerous as Soundwave had feared, the breadth and range of his abilities unprecedented in their power. Soundwave found himself reaching for his worst-case scenarios much sooner than he had ever expected, processors racing as he adjusted parameters, reworking his tactics in order to accommodate this far greater threat. At the same time, he opened a tightly-encrypted subchannel to the arena’s resident chroniclers, transmitting terse, cryptic code-phrases. The vast majority were orders for almost all the carriers to evacuate, to recall their cohorts and seek refuge outside the arena. The few that remained … had different instructions, had their roles to play, even as they remained ignorant of the reasons behind them.

The gladiators were finally moving, taking positions on the stands, in nearby hallways, coordinating through tight-banded tacnets as the remaining warframes fell into their usual battlegroups, arranging themselves for a minimum of crossfire. Parametric emerged from the darkness of the gate, walking as if oblivious to the armament aimed at him. The gladiators opened fire; unleashing a torrent of plasma blasts, rapid-fire energon shots interspersed with the scream of short-ranged missiles and other, even more exotic armament. The blasts slagged the iron sands, blew holes in nearby barricades, in walls and supporting structures, magnesium fires lighting up the arena with their deadly brilliance. The backwash was enough to white-out the nearest cameras, infrared useless against the onslaught of explosions, the arena shaking under the blasts. The cameras readjusted, refocussed, achingly slow--

\--and showed Parametric standing, barely even singed, in the midst of utter devastation. Not a single shot had hit. All had gone wide, fallen short; somehow inexplicably misaimed by veteran warframes, despite the point-blank range. Sensor-blinded, the mad carrier didn’t so much as a flinch as another volley of ordnance sent debris flying through the air. Parametric did not even seem to register the attack, heading unerringly for the darkened hatchway that led to the lower levels of the arena--and to where Transit was hidden.

A barrage of irate transmissions battered the arena sensornet, aimed at Red Alert, at each other.

_//What the frag--//_

_//--can’t get a lock!//_

_//I had the slagger, I know I did--//_

_//Something’s wrong with my targeting, my sights are refusing to align--!//_

_//Red, what the Pit IS this thing??//_

Letting Red Alert handle the angry warframes, Soundwave opened another primary processing thread--reaching out through the cohort bond, keeping his focus ever on Parametric. _//All: spread out, take positions at the perimeter. Your distance, your safety, essential to maintaining plan integrity.//_ Even most of his cohort did not know the entirety of his plan; deliberately so. But they knew enough--and were precious enough--to put his entire operation in jeopardy, should Parametric get close enough to sink his hooks into their processors.

 _//Get me the snipers -- are you in position? Move, move!//_ Red Alert ordered, cycling up the next of Soundwave’s layered orders, even as Soundwave himself retreated towards a side access tunnel, trying to stay outside the Parametric’s most likely range. None of the gladiators had much true long-range hardware; their weapons were meant for showy firestorms across the arena, for gory blade-to-blade combat, not for assassinations. But a few had kept their old hardware, and these mecha raced for the vast, upswept rim of the arena, towards good vantage points.

As if he heard the communication, Parametric kept to the shadows, to the overhung edge of the arena and the buttressing bulk of the great support pillars. He moved unerringly despite his blindness, as if he knew the route, as if he’d walked it a thousand times. And then he vanished.

_//Red, what the pit --//_

_//--the frag? Almost had it locked in!//_

_//Down the service conduit,//_ Red sent grimly. The small, twisting passages used by service mecha went everywhere in the arena, and were used to drag the injured off the arena sands and to place new props or hazards, even in the middle of the battle. The warren was difficult to map, and hard to access. _//He has our schematics,//_ Red Alert hissed, _//How? Who leaked them?!//_

//Focus,// Soundwave sent, tracking the mad carrier’s unerring progress through the twisting corridors with the cameras, just as Red Alert was doing. He could all but feel the security mech jittering. _//Assigning blame, inappropriate at this time.//_ Any of them could have given the route away, any mech who’d gotten close enough to Parametric, who’d seen a warped and unknown carrier and thought of Transit. The scaleframe’s assigned hiding place, should trouble start, couldn't help but be an open secret among the arena’s inhabitants. Not with all the reinforcements and monitors Soundwave had been installing over the past several vorn.

Soundwave hurried, circling wide, not certain if the mad carrier could read through walls -- or if so, what kind of walls. Time to test the hypothesis. Soundwave fired off a quick comm.

Down in the warren, the confusing maze of passages and cameras, a dozen small heads lifted, tilting tiny ears. Thin scales rattled -- gold or bronze, silver or copper -- as they flared, then slicked tight against each little chassis. And then a dozen scaleframes scattered, each of them wearing a micro-field emitter, generating the shadow of a familiar electromagnetic signature.

This, in contrast to the fire and fury above, was a hunt conducted in darkness, and in silence. Parametric moved, a ragged shadow in the labyrinth beneath the arena, winding his way ever deeper--and Soundwave paced him, watching from a hundred cameras, a thousand sensor nodes, even as he kept his own distance. It was obvious the mad carrier was sensing *something*, for he would pause, tilting his helm … then move in a different direction, choose one branching passage over the next. What that was, however, was impossible to say. Parametric made no vocalizations, no sounds of pain, or of anger, the shuffle of his pedes and the pained creaking of his frame the only sound he made.

Then a silver scaleframe scurried down a hallway, several mechanometers away--and Parametric froze. That blind helm came up, the mech stiffening like a bladeframe on a scent. Turning on his heel, the carrier moved, leaving behind his slow, measured pace, breaking into a lope as he darted through a hatchway and down a corridor, heedless of the grinding protests of his battered frame. The mad carrier moved far faster than Soundwave had expected, his stolen knowledge of the arena aiding him in his hunt. Within a breem, he was almost on top of the little scaleframe.

Pedes pounding, Parametric broke into the hallway, his helm turning to pin the terrified symbiont with an empty-socketed stare. Soundwave’s armor clamped tight in apprehension; a scaleframe’s relative lack of speed and agility meant that they had little chance of outrunning most other mecha, and he had hoped Parametric’s madness would prove more of an impediment. Venting inward harshly, Soundwave reached out, sending another rapid-fire series of coded commands.

Parametric hesitated, talons flexing as he tilted his helm, obviously realizing that the scaleframe before him was not Transit. He snarled silently, dentae flashing--

\--and an agile carrydrone darted out of a nearby side conduit. Scooping up the scaleframe, the mechanism leaped for the duct above without ever slowing, disappearing inside between one astrosecond and the next. Parametric lunged forward, cables stabbing outward, only for metal to clang impotently against metal as the duct irised shut.

Soundwave triggered the remainder of ventilation dampers, the fire suppression systems. All around the mad carrier ducts sealed themselves tight, hatchways hissing shut and locking. Parametric stood unmoving as the scaleframe was whisked away in the clutch of the drone, leaving him alone in a darkness of his own making.

Calculating rapidly, Soundwave found cause for hope. It appeared that Parametric couldn’t ‘see’ beyond a few mechanometers of walls and cross-tunnels. While acutely sensitive to fields, his ability to perceive them was likely dampened by distance and barriers. Whether through confusion or by choice, Parametric hadn’t tried to warp the symbiont’s processor, hadn’t tried to force the scaleframe to remain or resist his rescue. That might be due to a symbiont’s limited processor suite... which meant that possibly--just possibly--Parametric would be unable to influence anything so mindless as a drone.

Triumphantly, Soundwave triggered a handful of the arena’s war drones. Scuttling creatures with small weapons attached, they were normally used for target practice, and as mindless as any mechanism could be. Their many angular legs clicked through the conduits, skittering rapidly for the trapped carrier. Who stood quietly, helm tilted as if listening, cables drifting through the air in a deadly weave.

Listening, listening... as the tiny comm mechanisms in the wall clicked over, circuits responding to Soundwave’s command, keeping the hatchways closed. Listening as the scurrying drones sent their mindless commands to their own limbs, their own weapons.

Listening, Soundwave belatedly realized, for distant mecha.

All at once, the mad carrier’s cables lashed out, the rusted blades clattering against the armored walls, punching through, frayed fiberoptic tendrils searching--and hacking. Data-pulses pushed codes that the mad carrier should not have known into the layered wall circuitry, past datawalls, firewalls, slicing through layers upon layers of security; secrets that only a handful of the mecha at the arena possessed.

The wall comms dropped offline. The hatchways irised open. The war drones boiled out around Parametric, surrounded him ... and opened fire.

On each other.

Avoiding the battling mechanisms as easily as if he navigated a swarm of glitchmice, Parametric stepped over the drones as they tangled and fought, sheared limbs from their brethren, bronze blades flailing and weapons firing in mad flurries of mindless aggression. The drones tore each other apart, deactivating one by one, until only a single battered survivor remained. And then the drone turned its blades on itself.

Parametric strode into the empty corridor.

His turns were unerring, his progress swift. Dismayed, Soundwave sent new commands, threw up walls in the carrier’s path. Scaleframes scurried through the arena’s labyrinthine underground ways, ducking in and out of ducts, down service halls and hatchways. Every time Parametric approached one by chance, he changed direction to pursue it, heading towards the tiny, familiar fields as if drawn by a wire. Doors and drones alike were unable to stop him; he hacked both before they could do more than give him momentary pause. Only spaces too small for the mad carrier to physically enter could bar him from his prey.

Soundwave ordered gladiators into the fray, mecha he’d known for a vorn or more, using the arena’s extensive sensornet to guide them. The warframes were eager for a second chance at the intruder. They fared no better than the drones, in the end. Parametric was no less brutal in dealing with them, those corroded spikes spearing into armor, forcing battle-brothers to turn on each other as he hijacked weapons systems, blinded and confused the sensory arrays of his would-be assassins … with predictably lethal results.

And with each new barrier, each new delaying tactic and ambush, the carrier learned … avoiding Soundwave’s traps more adroitly, tearing through ambushes by war drones and gladiators alike before they could be fully set. Parametric learned the ways and secrets of the arena with each new encounter, each twist and turn of his chase. Until finally, deep in the heart of Kaon Arena, Parametric paused--listening as two scaleframes scuttled away from him in opposite directions. Finally realizing, Soundwave knew, that none of the symbionts he chased were truly the one he sought.

Parametric, however, had not been the only one learning the nature of his enemy.

Each new encounter, each twist and turn of that mad chase, had given Soundwave new insight into the mad carrier’s ability. Linked into every camera, every sensor node and audio-receiver, he saw every decision Parametric made. Saw every hesitation, every flinch and attack, almost as soon as the carrier made them. And with every ambush, Soundwave added new data to his arsenal: noting that while Parametric could scramble a single mech’s cortex, in a melee consisting of multiple attackers, he could only confuse and redirect. Time was the mad carrier’s ally -- throw three or four challenges at him at once, and Parametric responded poorly, took damage. The mad carrier could scramble targeting locks, blind optics and deafen audials, could spear into systems using battered primaries... but he couldn’t directly control entire groups of mecha, couldn’t force more than a single mech into harm’s way at a time. Soundwave learned how far the mad carrier could sense his prey, and what materials and how many walls served to baffle him.

Parametric’s abilities had limits … and with each step the carrier made, Soundwave learned what those limits were, what weaknesses he might be able to exploit.

Parametric had finally realized the nature of Soundwave’s game. He ignored the scattered, flickering fields of the other scaleframes, turning unerringly towards the tiny spark, hidden deep in the heart of the underground maze... the only one that didn’t move, didn’t run. Soundwave ordered the gladiators back, and then farther back, even as he finally left his protected position upon the outskirts, moving to intercept. It was impossible to tell how accurately Parametric could sense Transit’s position, or what the mad carrier might overhear, should Soundwave try to warn the little scaleframe.

Either way, Soundwave would need to move quickly.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings this chapter for self-harm, insanity, abusive treatment of symbionts.

Even as he ran, Soundwave was still receiving reports--from the drones, the symbionts, the sensornet of the arena itself that watched the inexorable progress of the mad carrier to Transit’s position. Still, Soundwave had not spent the last decavorn within Kaon Arena’s confines for no reason. Built within these walls were shortcuts, hatchways that opened only to his codes and no other, and he used that knowledge now, racing ahead of the advancing carrier. Transit had been concealed deep underneath the arena, near the safest location Soundwave had been able to devise; a small room behind multiple blast doors, surrounded by mechanometers of metal and ferrocrete. 

Finally in position, Soundwave knelt, running talon-tips over Transit’s fragile backplates. _//Transit, is prepared?//_ he murmured, field carefully blank and even, fathomless. 

The scaleframe blinked up with cerulean optics. He knew only what little he’d been told; that this was the only way to stop Parametric. To save him. _//I... think so,//_ he said.

Soundwave tilted his helm. Was that distant scraping sound Parametric? That dull grinding? _//Transit: must remember your upgrade. Modifications, will keep you safe,//_ he said quietly, concern for Transit intermingled with confidence. _//Soundwave: will handle Parametric, once carrier is offlined.//_

The scaleframe trembled finely under that touch, apprehensive … but determined all the same. _//I understand,//_ he said bravely. Soundwave had warned him that it might come to this, that it might be up to Transit to lure his former Master into this final trap. It was obvious, though, that the scaleframe was fighting his own coding, the part of him that wanted to hide, to curl up into an armored ball until the danger was past.

A warm plated palm stroked over those backplates. _//Transit: is very brave,//_ Soundwave said gently. 

The scaleframe snuffled. _//You’re braver,//_ he said, flinching at a distant sound--a groan? a screech?--from several hallways over.

Soundwave tucked his talon under the little symbiont’s chin, tilting his head up. _//Soundwave: will remain nearby, in the place we discussed. If Transit needs assistance, call. Soundwave: will come.//_

Transit ducked his head in a nod. _//I... yes. He’ll... he’ll be better, you’ll see. And we’ll come find you, so you can help him.//_ The little symbiont drew himself away from Soundwave’s plating, and with one last glance back, scurried away. 

Soundwave watched him go. It felt strange, unnerving to have to trust so fully in nothing more substantial than a web of lies and misdirections. But one thing, at least, Soundwave knew for certain.

Transit would never forgive him.

  


*********

  


Transit scurried through the passageways for symbionts, cut between mech-sized hallways and passages. His small claws clacked on the rough iron, the scales on his sides and tail scraping a little against the floor. Processors whirring with a hundred conflicting emotions, the symbiont trundled around a corner...

...and saw his former master for the first time.

Transit froze, quaking, as Parametric stepped into the glow of a cable node. The carrier had once been the rarified blue of nitrogen skies. He still was, in places -- but while flakes of smooth topcoat remained, they were islands in a sea of cankered rust. “M-- master?” the symbiont gasped, as that blank, unseeing helm turned unerringly to him. 

The warped carrier lurched forward. Transit shivered a vent. “I... I didn’t know -- w-we’ve been looking for a way to help.... Parametric, please --” 

Sharp-tipped cables reached for him, parts hanging, corroded with rust. And the symbiont knew... he knew what it would feel like, knew what would happen when the calipers of his dataports were forced aside, pried apart. And then the sheaf of tendrils would flood through him.... With a squeal, Transit broke and fled, claws clattering on the rough-cut steel as he ran, racing for safety towards the nearest duct. How could this have happened? *What* had happened? What had they done, to turn his Parametric into this... this horrible thing? 

Gripped by terror, Transit darted into the black, welcoming safety of one of the symbiont tunnels--

\--and fast as a striking razorsnake, the rust-rough length of a cable whipped around one stubby hind leg.

Transit screamed, a high-pitched cry of panic, his claws scrabbling for purchase as the carrier dragged him out of the narrow hole. Oh Primus, he could feel the corrosion crunching and popping as the cable snaked around him, flakes of rust breaking off, rubbing against his plating.... “P-please, master, please … don’t do this, please, let me go--” he begged, both with words and over comms, sending on the oldest channels that existed between carrier and symbiont, pleadings that no chronicler could ignore. 

The cable lifted him into the air, tensors groaning as they moved. Others joined it, curling around him in a parody of his Master’s affection, corroded, pitted dataspikes waving before his terrified optics. _//Let me go, please P-Parametric--you’re in there, I know you are, d-don’t hurt me, I didn’t want …//_

But his Master--the thing that his Master had become--didn’t respond. Those faceplates never changed … and a primary cable, so worn and metal-rotted that the pallid, flickering blue of sensor cilia could be glimpsed between the joins, lifted, barbed connectors heading inexorably for the quaking scaleframe’s main dataport. Transit struggled, armored plating clamped tight to his frame, struts groaning as he tried to tear himself free. To no avail--even as damaged as he was, Parametric was far stronger than Transit would ever be. The scaleframe shuddered under the sense-memory of that strength as it overlaid the present; of being peeled open, the coverings of his ports prised away with brutal strength, every inch of his frame, his processors taken and used--and he screamed, a despairing wail of fear ripping itself free from his vocalizer.

“No! Please--I d-don’t--I can’t--” Dimly, underneath the fear, he remembered Soundwave’s reassurances. Remembered the trap--the modifications that would take hold and incapacitate Parametric the instant the mad carrier made his connection. But by then it would be too late. He’d already be broken open, those pitted barbs sunk into him, his Master’s madness threaded deep into every part of him--no! “Help me--Soundwave!” Desperate, he reached out, screaming on every channel.

_//Soundwave!! Help me!//_

He waited … and was answered with silence. There was no return reassurance, no familiar reply to his call. No reply from anyone. 

He was alone. Abandoned.

 _//No! Nononono--Soundwave! Soundwave!//_ The carrier had promised he would answer, that he would be there--why wasn’t he there? He wasn’t far, he’d promised he’d stay, that he’d protect Transit ….

...and that advancing datacable stopped. The others wrapped around the symbiont’s frame tightened painfully, and only Transit’s heavily armored chassis kept him from damage, the overlapping plates groaning under the strain. The mad carrier’s frame stiffened, every corroded strut crackling. Whining in fear, Transit dared to look up, and saw that Parametric’s helm had turned, those empty sockets staring down the way Transit had come. 

The muddied, chaotic morass of that field changed, coalesced into a terrifying swell of rage and hate. And Parametric’s long silence broke, a metallic scream of betrayal and fury tearing itself free, a terrible and warped roar of challenge. 

_//MINE!!!!!//_ he shrieked on every channel, every frequency, the powerful sending swamping Transit’s receivers, the little scaleframe cringing away. Infected with madness, Parametric’s elemental rage was that of a carrier who saw a rival, and wished only to destroy him.

Parametric moved. Heading down the hallway, towards where Transit knew Soundwave waited. Transit could feel the press of his former Master’s power beating against his plating, pressing down over his mind, plucking out whatsoever the carrier wanted. Images of Soundwave, so tall and strong, cobalt plating rich and beautiful, sensor-panels fanned outwards. He was so like Parametric had once been, a reflection in a dark mirror. So like his Master would never be again. 

The invasive search moved on, plucking more details … the tiny room where they had met, the tangle of hallways that led to it. Their plan, Soundwave’s reassurances, Soundwave’s protection …. and Parametric broke into a run, his shambling gait turning into a fierce forward charge. Battered metal clattered against metal, struts groaning with effort. As hallways flashed by, Transit called out for Soundwave, though whether for help or in warning even he no longer knew.

_//Soundwave Soundwave he’s coming please! Soundwave don’t let me help me he’ll hurt you he’ll tear me open get away please please rescue me Soundwave--!//_

Parametric swung into another dim corridor, barely slowing. Transit saw the familiar marks, the tiny room on the end. This was where he had left Soundwave. Was he still there? Had he run away? There was the barest flicker of blue beyond the doorway; a datacable, sliding out of sight. Parametric lunged after it like a cyberhawk upon a lure, screaming a silent challenge over comms. _//ThiefseducerdieMINEdieDIE!!//_

They passed the hatchway, into the little room. Soundwave was there, waiting. Transit had only an instant to realize the other carrier’s battlemask was up, the full spread of his primaries extended, blades and barbs waiting--

\--and then the wall itself thundered down behind them. Sealed not by an electronically-controlled hatch, but by a massive slab of rough-cut iron, winched into place and triggered by nothing more than a manual lever, a deadfall that would take a hauler-frame to raise. All the walls in this cul-de-sac were blank, featureless, without sensors or cameras or any hackable electronics, locking Parametric in … and trapping Transit and Soundwave with him.

  


*********

  


Parametric hesitated for the barest moment, there in that dim room. Transit’s terror, the little symbiont’s optics and audials, told the mad carrier more about his surroundings than his own ruined sensors. Through those small processors, he saw his surroundings, measured the height and breadth of the foolish little trap, judged the object of his hatred. 

But from the dark carrier himself, Parametric received almost nothing -- no whispering signals of moving joints, no steady data-thrum of weapons. No smoke-rising drifts of equations, rising up from force multiplier links. No fevered murmur of active protometal. No clouds of optical data, no slow codeshifts of strut and frame. There was an impression of energy, yes, but it was nothing more than a background hum, like a single calm note where the mad carrier had become accustomed to a cacophony, to constant exposure to billions of lines of code in constant flux.

So quiet. No living mech, no drone, was so quiet in the face of Parametric’s sole remaining sense. 

An illusion. 

The dark carrier couldn’t be real. 

His fury was beyond control, beyond any measure, rust-rotted processors groaning with the charge of his hate. Parametric’s cables coiled down on his sole remaining symbiont, his solace, his salvation -- the dark carrier had taken all his others, lured them away, tried to take this one. And now the whore-thief mocked him with this empty image, this cowardly foil falsity. With a rending scream, Parametric lashed out, cables whipping, talons barbed with corrosion. 

And struck metal. 

With the reverberation came a hint of data beneath the mirror, rising lines of obscured code, the chassis beneath the chicanery... and Parametric staggered back under a flurry of blows. A furious uppercut jarred his helm back, a wrenching twist loosened the grip of his rotted cables -- and his symbiont tumbled free, glossy scales slipping loose from clasping coils, Transit hitting the ground with a scrabbling clang. With Transit’s audials, Parametric heard the other carrier’s shouted command; through Transit’s optics, he could see the dark circle of a symbiont-sized conduit, an escape route. 

The scream built one more, an undulating wail that shrieked across all channels -- _//NonononoNONO!//_

Parametric’s talons carved at metal, cables lashing as he lunged for his symbiont, fighting against the foul trickster-seducer-hatedHATED false abomination of a carrier who sought to block his way. But every attempt he made was blocked, every darting lunge of his primaries, his talons tangled in his enemy’s cables, brutally rebuffed by his enemy’s strength. And then Transit was gone, his beautiful symbiont was gone, short little legs scampering down the shielded hall, that familiar, precious haze of rising code vanishing behind mechanometers of ferrocrete. 

Blinded now, Parametric turned on his tormentor, the source of his hate, the dark-plated demon who’d taken everything from him. That strange field of shielding obscured almost all of the dark carrier’s internal coding, internal dataflows. No matter how powerful his ability, Parametric couldn’t hack what he couldn’t find. 

But no protection was perfect. 

Howling his grief and his rage across every tone, every channel, Parametric crashed into Soundwave with the horrible grinding screech of metal on metal. Every place he struck the other carrier blossomed with code, the obfuscation momentarily clearing, affording Parametric glimpses of the running processes below. It was the briefest glimpse, the slimmest fraction of an opening. He flung himself at it, ignoring the damage done to himself as he grappled with his enemy, barbed datacables twining and tearing. 

The other carrier was a blankness, a a silent wrongness empty of field or thought. Without functional audials or optics, Parametric was blind, with only haptic sensory input left to him. The clash of metal against metal, the damage reports as his enemy’s talons tore through rust-rotted armor, savaging internals, the pain from damaged datacables as the other carrier blocked and cut--it was all inconsequential, of no purpose save to tell him where his enemy was. It allowed him to close, to pit talons against talons, to rip and tear in the physical world. And it allowed him glimpses of his enemy’s mind, the fast-running coding of combat protocols, support systems, flares of the other carrier’s field, openings measured in astroseconds. 

The interloper slammed talons into his chassis, breaching his fissured chestplates, crunching through the thin, layered wafers of the docks beneath. Agony spiked, white-hot and sickeningly real; Parametric could feel his armor fracturing under that strength, could feel the other carrier’s cold calculating fury, even as a haze of redlines and warnings threatened to swamp his processors. But it didn’t matter. For there, finally, was the opening he sought. Even as his outer armor was breached, Parametric attacked, tearing through his enemy’s firewalls, stabbing his fury inward to twist and rend. 

To hack the dark carrier’s mind, until there was nothing left.

  


*********

  


Parametric fought with the force of madness, uncaring of the damage to his chassis, without concern for the unwritten codes and forms of gladiatorial combat. Battling a desperate mech was nothing like squaring off against a warframe, and Soundwave was hard-pressed to keep the mad carrier at bay. But, one damaged system at a time, Parametric was steadily faltering. 

With hooked talons, Soundwave tore at the thick slab of the mad carrier’s chestplates, exposing protometal that crumbled like fragile lithium, sensory cilia corroded and gray. Thin docks crumpled, and in some deeply-coded part of him, Soundwave revelled in that destruction. No other symbiont would suffer this carrier’s madness, would be slave to Parametric’s authority. 

Pallid, rust-barbed cables whipped at him, goring deep scrapes into armor, lashing around joints, screeching across visor and audials. He ignored the wounds, dodging what he could, enduring the rest as he tore open internals, trying to do enough damage to force Parametric offline. One more vicious uppercut, powered by cold fury, and then--

\-- the whole of Soundwave’s arm went numb, circuits shutting down. A coolant pump in his torso went haywire next, reversing flow, driving agonizing spikes of pressure into internal tubing never meant to handle such loads. Cascading failures mounted as system after system malfunctioned without warning, so fast that Soundwave had no warning, no time to prepare against a traceless hack that came from nowhere, that sliced through his defenses in astroseconds. 

Staggering, Soundwave threw his shoulder into the mad carrier’s broken torso with a raw cry of defiance, flinging Parametric back even as he tried to wall off the damage, scrabbling to control his own hacked systems. His components responded sluggishly, or not at all; almost as if they belonged to some other mech, higher processes feeding gibberish into his autonomic systems, ignoring priority-overrides, their base coding corrupted into uselessness. Parametric hit the wall with a terrible crack, armor crumpling under the blow. For a moment, he sagged--then lunged back at Soundwave the moment he regained his pedes, as if he felt none of the damage. 

Soundwave struck the mad carrier again, violent goring blows that ripped away at that already ruined helm, the multitools at the tips of his cables configured into chisels and blades. Rusted components shattered, the remains of audials and armor shattering off of Parametric’s helm, clinging against the hard iron floor. Reeling from the hack, Soundwave pressed his advantage, fighting with desperate skill hard-won in countless arena sparring matches. A powerful kick crushed the mad carrier’s thorax, energon spilling onto the floor....

...and then a corroded, pitted primary cable sliced into the joins of one arm, barbs biting deep, coiling tight enough to crumple plating. The physical connection was all Parametric needed to complete his hack. Every one of Soundwave’s carefully-coded battle protocols, datawalls and firewalls alike, his internal systems and overrides--they all all fell offline, Parametric’s madness peeling back his defenses, infecting every part of him. Only the mostly deeply-coded core of him still remained online, the essential systems for life--his spark chamber, his prime directives--and even those were faltering, swamped under an avalanche of redlined errors, processors choking under the load of corrupted code as it went viral.

Soundwave fell--and Parametric went with him, the mad carrier’s datacables so entangled that it was impossible to disengage. 

Parametric tore at him in eerie silence, filling Soundwave’s comms with his hate even as corroded talons scrabbled at armor, tore at wiring. _//--thief DIE enemy take I take you in I rip you apart EXTINGUISH YOU! Transit mine always mine never yours foul seducer liar thief my beautiful Transit mine mine ours poison you tear you open taking what’s mine--//_ Soundwave tried to block, tried to defend, but his frame was unresponsive, jerking spasmodically, tangled inextricably with Parametric’s in a morbid parody of interfacing. Only the extra armor acquired over vorns at the arena, combined with Parametric’s own weakened frame, kept his internals from the mad carrier’s talons. 

Soundwave had wanted to offline Parametric first, to incapacitate the mad carrier before launching his final attack. Now, the projective plane generator was the only thing that might allow him to survive this--if he could only reach it. He stopped fighting the hack, allowed Parametric’s intrusion to breach new systems unhindered, focussing all his resources, all the processing power left to him, to a single set of systems, a single target. One arm was all he needed. One simple, easy sequence of movements. If he could … only reach .... 

More systems shut down, optics fritzing, sensory arrays registering a cacophonous screech of distorted input as hot agony spiked through him, Parametric tearing free a handful of cervical cabling. Soundwave ignored it all, *reaching*--and for a brief, glorious moment, he had control. One hand darted to the armored panel in his side, ripped it free, jerked free the projective plane module, quick-release connections disengaging. A single line of code, and the module reconfigured, dropping the interference shield, letting the full towering inferno of code-warping madness come crashing in, and Soundwave slammed it forward--

\--and froze, arm hanging in midair, as Parametric locked him down. _//Interloperdespoilerfilth DIE!//_

Soundwave’s own core coding turned upon him. His awareness was nothing but pain and blackness -- a stygian void, clawed and fanged, glinting silver... and thundering down upon the entangled carriers.

Absorbed in his foe, in tearing apart and drinking in every last iota of Soundwave’s being, Parametric never even saw it coming. But he felt it, as the searing impact of high caliber rounds thudded through his chassis, as talons ripped and shredded, fangs like long knives rending great chunks of his backplates to clang against the cold flooring. 

Parametric arched back and screamed, a terrible rattling howl of anguish. His cables lashed at his new assailant even as he grappled with the new mech’s code -- _//SymbiontenemysymbiontMINEsalvation//_ \-- confused, slow, for no memory keeper would offer violence against a carrier, symbionts couldn’t, didn’t -- but this was a symbiont, and any symbiont was a well of memories, a blissful escape from this tattered reality, a drug like no other. Torn, fuel-pumps stuttering, he caught at the memory-keeper, dragged the huge bladeframe around...

...and his grip on Soundwave slipped. Only for an astrosecond, and only in part. But that was long enough for the dark carrier to execute his last command. Finishing his motion, Soundwave stabbed the projective plane module into the rusted, crumpled wafers of Parametric’s docks, the remains of the mad carrier’s broad chest. 

The field modulator flared, taking measurements, and then performed its function. And Parametric’s own field -- inverted, made manifest and eminently readable -- fell into place around him, an impenetrable shell of sensory feedback.

For the first time, Parametric witnessed the extent of his own madness.

The ruined carrier gaped, frozen. Any other mech would have read a horror in that field, a muddied and frightening morass of tangled foulness, nothing clean. Parametric.... Parametric saw everything. He saw rising mists, shadows of coding that jumped between components like viruses; tangled inserts and copy upon useless copy that rotted through the few remaining threads of rightness. Boiling code, crawling code, collapsing under its own seething weight, bubbling up like core-deep rust. 

Abomination.

His few remaining cables went slack, dropping the forgotten symbiont. With a grinding screech, Parametric flung himself at this false parody of a mech, talons carving at a mist that danced always just out of reach. He could feel it rending at him too -- more bullets, furious claws that stripped the tensors from his legs, that sheared through joints and laid protometal bare, until he could only crawl. But it was the thing’s mere presence that corrupted him most, for he could see it, all the code, could not ignore it, could not let it flow around him. And, even as Parametric incorporated the madness, the thing before him grew more bloated still, equations a cacophony of feedback, maddening complexity, never ending....

Protometal fell around him in motes, in grains, in blackening and curling flakes. And still Parametric fought -- even as his chest brightened with inner light.

Chamber breach. 

_//R-Ravage. Enough.//_ Still crippled from Parametric’s hack, Soundwave could do nothing but watch as Ravage’s attack finished what he had begun. Through fritzing optics, he could see the snarling bladeframe pacing about Parametric’s shuddering, broken frame. There was almost nothing left that was whole; the mad carrier’s chassis was a shattered ruin, cortical wiring sparking and exposed inside a fractured helm, the tarnished gleam of protometal visible beneath shattered plating. Yet Parametric still fought, tried to pull himself forward, even as his ventilations stuttered, his spark flaring, ebbing. His few remaining cables wavered up, sliced blindly at himself and the air, as if he could carve out the corruption in his code by force. 

Splattered with energon, Ravage growled, obviously wanting to end the threat Parametric posed once and for all. Soundwave lost his comms, rerouted, navigating his way through a cataract of resets. He reached for the familiar connection to his First once more. _//Enough. Ravage: return. Parametric, beyond saving.//_ Now that the battle was over, Soundwave allowed himself to feel a measure of regret. Despite his promise to Transit, he had never truly believed he would be able to save Parametric. Transit, however .… Regardless of what Parametric had done, what he had become, Transit would still mourn his loss. 

Ravage hesitated, then dipped his head in obedience to Soundwave’s will. Sparing a violent snarl in Parametric’s direction, the spiked flail of his tail lashing, the bladeframe retreated, moving to stand guard over his Master’s prone frame. _//You are badly damaged … shall I call Red Alert now? Stent and the others can be here in just a few kliks.//_

 _//Negative.//_ Soundwave’s optics never wavered from Parametric’s frame. _//Not yet.//_

The mad carrier’s movements were slowing, his cables sagging towards the ground. His spark flickered in the darkness of its broken chamber, flaring golden white, pure and unspoiled against a sea of rust and decay. Something glinted inside that ruined chassis -- silver and intricate and whole, parts that Soundwave did not recognize. And in Parametric’s field … something changed, a tiny awareness of his own impending death seeping past the madness. 

The rage had vanished, the hate fading into emptiness and grief. Parametric’s spark guttered, sinking to an ember. A faint whisper trickled over their comms, a final reaching for bonds that were no longer there.

_//Transit ...//_

And then Parametric was gone.

The extinguished mech’s chassis slowly collapsed, circuits executing their last commands, going lax. With a quiet, mechanical sigh, the vacant hardware settled to the ground in a shower of rust flakes and metaldust. 

Head low, Ravage stalked to where one of the mad carrier’s datacables still lay across Soundwave’s legs, and seized the rusted length between his jaws, flinging it away as if it were a razorsnake, dangerous even when dead. He longed to do even more, to crush the corpse into little more than dust. The bladeframe exvented in a harsh snort, clearing the taint of decay from his airways. He circled back to his master’s side, surveying the dark carrier’s physical damage, the shaking that heralded code level corruption. 

Slowly, the bladeframe laid down beside his Master, black plating against cobalt. 

Soundwave struggled to assemble a coherent comm, his systems crashing almost as quickly as he could cobble them back together. _//T-Transit...//_

 _//Is safe.//_ Ravage touched the tip of his wiry glossa to one of the deep rents in Soundwave’s armor, a brief lapping motion. The delicate sensory wires registered the depth of the damage, told him of the stuttering and damaged codeware beneath the surface. _//Coldcast is keeping him restrained.//_ The climbframe was from a cohort which had courted Transit. With any kind of luck, the little scaleframe would remain calm -- and elsewhere -- for a time.

_//...Ravage... ordered... to stay...//_

The big bladeframe rested his chinplates on Soundwave’s arm, feeling the spastic trembling under his sensory whiskers. _//Did you, now? I trust you’ll forgive an old bladeframe his dotage.//_

That elicited a slightly more coordinated shiver, the shadow of an exhausted laugh. _//S-stubborn ...//_

Ravage pressed subtly closer. _//No more so than a certain carrier I know,//_ he replied, his relief and his worry both too intense to conceal. _//May I call the others now?//_

Soundwave shuttered his optics, soaking in the familiar warmth of Ravage’s field. _//--yes.//_ Talons twitched, curling, as if to reach out, to touch and to stroke. Perhaps later, Soundwave might think on how readily Ravage had overcome his own nature, turned violence against a Templar -- even a warped one. But now, he could only dwell upon how close this contest had been. If Ravage had not disobeyed him … _//Ravage … th-//_

 _//There is no need, Master,//_ Ravage said, waiting in the darkness next to Soundwave, even as Red Alert mobilized their rescue. Even as the last flickers of undirected charge left the mad carrier’s shattered remains. _//I am here. I will always be here.//_  



	8. Chapter 8

The next few orn, Soundwave rested little. As soon as Stent and the other medics stabilized his code, permitting him to communicate via comm without the stuttering, broken glyphs that might have revealed his weakness, Soundwave set about reorganizing the arena.

He had no other choice. While the arena’s part-time code specialist reconstructed Soundwave’s corrupted coding, the carrier was essentially immobile, defenseless, unable to provide his cohort protection in a crumbling world. And so he reached out to Demolishor, to Maul, to every high-ranking Decepticon he knew or could access, offering the arena as a training facility in truth, effectively surrendering the infrastructure in exchange for operating expenses. In point of fact, the arena was nothing that the Decepticon movement would not eventually take anyway, if Soundwave’s calculations were correct. But Megatron’s forces seemed to value legitimacy for the time being, preferred to purchase rather than seize -- when they could.

In between bargains struck and compromises won, Soundwave contacted his chroniclers, each in turn. Mecha who remained in Kaon would soon be pressed into service, he knew, unless they worked at a task which Megatron’s forces labeled ‘indispensable.’ Regardless of how great the need, or how far from the frontlines that service was likely to be, a war was no place for most chronicler cohorts. One by one, Soundwave gave them new instructions, deeply encrypted codes, frequency bands to use only amongst themselves, against future need. He arranged for them to leave the city with subspaces full of as much energon and supplies as he could obtain from the arena stores, in convoys strong enough to defend against marauders and empties, destined for one of the neutral city-states.

It was a stopgap measure at best, and slim consolation for mecha who had only just come to Kaon in search of the sanctuary that Soundwave had promised. There was little resistance, however; Soundwave was not the only Chronicler-carrier to see the looming threat of the coming war. In the end, the sight of the once-bustling arena almost emptied of symbionts--save his own--made his spark ache with unexpected loss. But there was nothing else to be done. Their lives, their safety, had to take precedence.

His cohort stayed close, at least two of them always curled against his battered plating in protection and reassurance, until Soundwave could stand once more. Once he could walk unaided, Soundwave set about reorganizing the arena for its new function, overseeing the first influx of recruits. The warren beneath the arena was dismantled or sealed off, the injured gladiators repaired. Three had been extinguished in the confusion and darkness; they too were dismantled, a source of parts for young recruits. And still the gladiators left, to answer either the Prime or the Lord Protector’s call to arms, until only the desperate and the unsuitable were left. Red Alert finally left for Iacon, the imperatives of his coding too deep to ignore, despite all the persuasion that Soundwave could muster. He was not the last … fully half their medics had left, choosing to answer Optimus Prime’s call, until the only ones that remained were those too old and cynical to care, or had already sworn themselves to the Lord Protector, the Decepticons, and been ordered to stay.

With Kaon rapidly emptying of symbionts, Soundwave had other tasks for his cohort, too -- sending them far afield to watch, to listen as Megatron mustered his forces, as the Towers scrambled for footing in this uncertain new age. He couldn't help but sense his symbionts' concern, their frustration and worry. But they went, obedient to his need.

At a break in the preparations, Soundwave finally retreated to his quarters. For the first time in most of a vorn, it seemed, he was alone.

Running the Kaon Arena, managing Clench, dealing with unruly gladiators and irate medics: it all had been a constant round of ever-shifting pressures and decision-making. The path forward would be even more fraught -- the arena now served an uncertain hierarchy of masters, each with his own needs, most with minimal interest in instilling basic combat skills in mecha drafted to serve as cannon fodder. If the war reached beyond Kaon and Iacon, nothing about the future would be certain.

Not for his cohort... and not for any of the others, carrier or symbiont, that he had tried so hard to protect.

It was on that future that Soundwave dwelt now.

Soundwave could feel the pressure of his cohort’s worry and concern. It resonated subtly over their bond, even as his symbionts kept their distance, obedient to his command. Soundwave regretted their distress; it was rare that he separated himself from them so completely. But he needed a small amount of space in which to think, to bring all his processing power to bear on the stark realization that lay before him.

It was not an easy thing, he was finding, to contemplate your own extinction.

Sense-memory kept intruding upon his calculations. The feel of Transit’s thin-plated, battered frame, shivering in his talons as the symbiont mourned the death of his master. That look of quiet horror, abject betrayal, as the symbiont realized that he had unwittingly played the role of bait, protected by nothing more substantial than lies. And earlier, before war had become a certainty, the way the scaleframe had cringed at Soundwave’s touch, baring his main hardline port in frantic abasement, waiting in resigned expectation to be … plundered. To be used and thrown away, as if a memory-keeper was nothing more than a piece of equipment, a thing to be accessed and overwritten at another’s whim.

It was wrong. Everything that had happened was fundamentally, deeply wrong. Soundwave knew that, down to his very spark. It was perverse and wrong and part of him wished that Parametric were still alive, if only so that Soundwave could once again attempt to beat that understanding into his helm.

But Parametric was dead. Which, in essence, was the problem.

Transit’s carrier was dead. Pitch was dead. Along with so many others, symbiont and carrier alike, all returned to the Well. Despite Soundwave’s efforts, only a relative few chroniclers had made it to Kaon. He knew of fewer than fifty thousand, yet the Chronicler class had once numbered almost a million. Had they already lost ninety-five percent of their frameclass, or were the rest still out there, somewhere, struggling to survive? War was coming; Megatron’s defiance had made that end inevitable. And war, Soundwave knew, took its greatest toll upon the weak and the defenseless.

How many more symbionts could return to the Well before all of Cybertron’s history, its culture, its knowledge, was lost forever?

Soundwave pulled in all the data he had for analysis, compiling, correlating. He sent queries to every member of his cohort, to every chronicler still in residence in Kaon and beyond, asking for the designations of every chronicler-carrier, every symbiont they had ever known or heard of. He mined data from public records of deactivations and newsparks, from salvage records and tallies of the unknown, unnamed frames given over to the smelting pits. Billions of data points, of records and rumors and memories shared between symbionts and carriers, stretching back over the last megavorn and more …

… and everything he found, every analysis he ran, brought him back to the same single, inescapable conclusion. They were too few. Too scattered. Too unprotected. In the coming war, even more chroniclers would die. The few that survived, that beat the odds, could never carry the weight of a world. They would never make up for all the history that had been lost. Cybertron’s chroniclers would fail in their function. They would die, one by one, and no matter how many Soundwave tried to save, it would never be enough.

The data was incontrovertible. Something had to change.

Soundwave shuttered his optics, drew a slow ventilation. And then he reached out to his cohort. _//Ratbat: return. Your assistance, required.//_

 

***** 

 

The glideframe hadn’t strayed far from the arena. He returned directly, landing with a flutter in Soundwave’s lap, wings splayed akimbo. Once there, the little symbiont happily accepted the gentling stroke of Soundwave’s talons, arranging himself to his satisfaction. Thoroughly pleased, Ratbat blinked up with his beady little optics. “Where we going, boss?” he chirped.

Soundwave stroked Ratbat’s wings close against the symbiont’s sides. He did not like to rely upon the glideframe’s predictive abilities too heavily; such dependence on looking into an ever-shifting multitude of uncertain probabilities could easily lead into complacency and disaster. But for a decision of this magnitude, he had few other choices. “Between,” he said, quietly.

“Oh.” Ratbat spread his jaws in a sharp-fanged little yawn. “Okay. Wake me up when its over,” he said, his primary datalink port spiraling open.

Soundwave passed the pad of his thumb-talon over the little glideframe’s audials, stroking across brow ridge and cheekplates. “Affirmative,” he said, and brought the tip of one primary close, multitools locking the cable tight against Ratbat’s small chassis. The full sheaf of his cilia flooded into the little mech, the seeking tips spreading into the deeply-folded port, further to the most internal of the symbiont’s uplink nodes. Ratbat exvented, frame limp and relaxed, chinplates resting on the sheath of the cable.

And preparing himself, Soundwave sank into the symbiont’s memory well.

Ratbat had lived a long time, and seen much -- he’d been created at around the same time as Soundwave. But compared with the elder symbionts of Soundwave’s cohort, the little glideframe was still not much more than a mechling, with only a little more data stored than a researcher or another frameclass with extensive hard drives might have. If he reached, Soundwave had the transfer rate and bitdepth to access almost every part of Ratbat’s memory well, without needing the symbiont to spin the memory up for him.

The dendritic filaments of sharp-edged memory were neatly packed, coiled, rustling around him like wings in the darkness, awaiting Soundwave’s command. With an instant’s hesitation, Soundwave reached out, selected a recent memory at random.

The anamnesis spiraled up, and twined him -- and Soundwave sank into the full depth of it, feeling the little symbiont’s body as if it were his own, tasting each eddy of atmosphere, each visual imprint around him. Sound was the strongest sensation of all, with each quiet click as Stent worked in the next room as real and tangible as a physical object. Soundwave’s own ventilations were a quiet rattle in the memory, behind him, unchanged -- the dark carrier was partially in stasis, laid out in a medbay cradle. Ratbat’s other senses were more muted, in comparison with the brilliant clarity of most symbionts’ memories. A glideframe simply wasn’t large enough to carry a complex sensor suite, and accordingly his memories were softer things, more vague, less dense with sensation.

Even Ratbat’s optics, though, were sharp enough to make out the mad carrier, laid out on a slab in the room where medics with nothing else to do came to pick the dead clean. The chassis was a wreckage, little more than rust and ruin, empty of life.

But not empty.

Indulging his curiosity, Ratbat hopped closer, fluttering to a bare ceiling girder. Between the remains of those crumpled, loose-hanging docks lay another device, half-obscured, nestled in the wall of the cavity that had once housed the mad carrier’s spark. Silvery, intricate, strange, like no other piece Ratbat had seen in any other mech. Ratbat scritched his audial, and cocked his helm, studying the strange thing, and the mech who had so damaged his master.

This memory, like most of Ratbat’s, felt... loose, only partially moored to the physical world. Imprecise as the sensation was, there was really no other way to describe it. As Soundwave enmeshed himself into the experience, into Ratbat’s contemplative moment, he could feel the memory-files around him begin to... unwind, with flickering gaps just beyond the range of his optics, textures that subtly shifted from one glimpse to the next. Between the mundane noise of tools and activity were shadowy sounds, murmurs less than half-heard, but real nevertheless. The effect was haunting, disturbing. Dwelling in this space for too long, Soundwave suspected, could drive a mech to the brink of madness.

He still wasn’t entirely certain how Ratbat handled seeing... these intrusions, these glimpses.

And, sometimes, more than glimpses.

Carefully, deliberately, Soundwave focussed on those non-realities, feeling his way to the places where the memory felt thinnest, most malleable. And then Soundwave stepped sideways... through the memory, and into infinity.

The transition was never easy -- never safe -- and more jarring even than the first time Ravage’s memories had opened up beneath him.

Possibility, probability unspooled before him, a tangled haze of multidimensional mathematical realities too vast to ever grasp. The lines were a maze, were a labyrinth, were a fractaled nest of recursions. Pause too long, Soundwave knew, and he risked being dragged down, sucked into endless minutae from which there was no escape. But follow the wrong path, and the probabilities ceased to track his reality, fanned out into futures that would never be.

Ratbat’s memories were a singular, parallel thread -- a crack, a way through -- wending along the channels of that impossible maze. And Soundwave followed that thread, tracked the symbiont’s reality. These were the things that had happened, the possibilities taken, the potentials ignored. Here was an injury avoided, there was a left turn instead of a right -- on and on, through endless echoes of reality. And then came the moment when Ratbat landed in his Master’s lap, took his cable... and there the memories came to an abrupt halt, the guiding line of things-that-were ending, leaving Soundwave on the edge of the unknown.

From here on out, he was on his own.

Delimiting his observations, Soundwave had learned, was essential for navigating the spaces between. The sheer numberless volume of possibilities, of raw data unadulterated by the limitations of a singular reality, was impossibly vast. No mech could hope to encompass it all, and Soundwave knew better than to try. Instead, he narrowed his focus to the branching upon which he stood, the part of the pattern immediately before him, ignoring the edges of actions/consequences/changes that spiralled into infinity. Before him he could feel the razor-sharp prickling of three potentialities: two major, equal in future-inevitability, and one minor, fading as the present progressed inevitably forward. The paled possibility was an outlier … originally equal in strength to the other two, it had been the path of reconciliation, of war averted and a path beyond.… to peace? Or perhaps stagnation. That path might once have been Cybertron’s future: a new darkness, or a new golden age. Regardless, they were equally impossible now.

The two that remained--potentialities linked to Soundwave himself-- plunged inevitably to war. He reached, opening himself cautiously to them, catching glimpses of future-memories that did not yet exist. Following a string of choices, Soundwave found neutrality … a path predicated on survival at all costs. The future folded outward, chaotic fractured images of _/sanctuary gone, arena behind them, fear and flight and border crossings past implacable warframes. The howling fall of artillery, waiting scheming in Kalis Tyger Axiom, Towers falling, despair death run hide protect the cohort, protect each other. Tarn Praxus Vos a swirl of nameless places, moving always moving, don’t stop .... The broken husks of cityformers, great gutted corpses standing stark and broken against an irradiated sky, constant danger and the grinding emptiness of slow starvation, move keep safe, Buzzsaw dead, screaming his defiance as he tumbled from the sky a tattered burning star, Ratbat broken a crippled thing cradled in rust-edged talons, despair and failure and grief as they huddled in the darkness of a dying world--/_

Soundwave wrenched himself free, his resolve shaken by the visceral despair of that future-glimpse. He’d suspected that neutrality would only make them targets; now he knew for sure. If they wished to survive, they would need to choose.

Prime or Lord High Protector--which was it to be?

The remaining future-path was strong, almost to the point of inevitability, and deceptively easy to navigate. The major branchings came swiftly, and again Soundwave reached for the first, allowing fragmented, inchoate future-memories into the edges of his awareness. If he chose the Senate, the Prime, there would be _/cautious welcome suspicion underneath Bulkhead Red Alert other familiar faceplates, old friends and enemies all there, watching, waiting, whispering .../_ A blur of time, of dizzying, wrenching possibilities and _/they knew, the Senate had heard whispers, held their grudges and withheld their favors, giving him space giving them energon and weapons and nothing more for Soundwave was an agitator a traitor not to be trusted a mercenary only out for what he could get criminal unworthy of the Prime unnecessary in the ranks. Safety for a time, then death death and death, mecha piled high, empty frames dangling limply over broken Tower spires, and soon there is no Senate, no government, no temples only death and fighting and Prime/_ But by then too much had changed, his chance was gone for _/Optimus faithful Optimus standing tall, a warrior-Prime against the fires, his inner circle of advisors friends survivors well-marked, well-trusted RatchetJazzBumblebeeArceeIronhideProwl names upon names but none of them his, his frame battered and worn and he had survived, he was loyal but it was hollow, his cohort lived at the expense of all else for they were the few, the last, flickering sparks that could never ever reignite the flame--/_

He wrenched himself away. Mere survival wasn’t enough. Not in the face of extinction. Desperate, exhausted already, he reached for the other strand.

The last of the major futures spooled open before him, vast and twisting and endless _/--barracks cold and grey and battered civilians standing uncertainly, meager weapons clutched in talons that shake. Hard training, harder blows, new allies and old enemies, the malicious laughter of warframes echoing ... Flipsides picked up and shaken like a toy, a quiet assassin padding the shadows, head held low between bladed shoulders, politics and ploys and disdain for useless civilians and then the first battle was upon them, fire and fury and screaming destruction cascading into infinite darkness--/_

A dead end. Soundwave knew enough to steer well clear of that sucking trap, to backtrack without looking into the abyss. He knew what that darkness was, had seen it before-- Ratbat’s death, his tiny frame extinguished, his spark lost to the Well. Perhaps there was a future beyond that whirlpool, but it was not one that Soundwave could access through the symbiont... and it was not one that Soundwave cared ever to see. He turned away, to where the thread of future-memory warped and branched, spreading himself outward, searching _/for a place a purpose a function, blocked on all sides by warframes, by established hierarchies and ingrained disdain. Invisible and voiceless, utterly replaceable, marshalling frantic lies, deft misdirections. Clawing for respect and for power, scrabbling for energon, for defiance against frontliners circling like Sharkticons. Ambushes new battles and injuries upon injuries, helm bowed in submission as victorious warframes gutted cities, proving their dominance upon the frames of their lessers--/_ another dead end, and Soundwave rerouted, brushed up against another sucking whirlpool before he could regain his bearings _/AGONY-PLEASE-MASTER!/_

He lurched back, grasped at another path, felt _/Megatron’s strength, unparallelled power, the wash of heat across his faceplates as that tarnish-silvered cannon fired, Prime forced back, retreating again and again as ancient libraries shattered under their pedes, fury beyond measure. Razored talons closing cruelly around his helm, looking up seeing the results of coding twisted beyond all recognition, a Lord High Protector of nothing and no one, jagged dentae bared in frustrated burgeoning *madness*--/_ Death and more death, the encompassing grief of Soundwave’s own deactivation, the far more dangerous moments when Ratbat suffered the same... those moments stood like storm clouds, obscuring the tangle of possibilities even more with their anguish. If Soundwave joined the Decepticons, he would court his cohort’s demise at every turn. Perhaps, if he were careful enough, relied on Ratbat’s prescience and Ravage’s strength enough, he could chart a course through this morass of destruction, could find a way through. But the other Chroniclers, the other symbionts... he simply couldn’t see far enough, widely enough, to glimpse their fate.

Soundwave’s already weakened coding was stretched to its limits, his processors running hot in futile effort to make sense out of chaotic possibility. The haze closed in as his grasp on the paths before him weakened. All his choices were no choices at all, the shape of each future as horrifying as the last. War would engulf all Cybertron, and its Chroniclers would burn with it.

He retreated. Despair ate at him like rust. What promise, what future could there be in this dying world?

In his exhaustion, Soundwave stumbled, and his awareness pressed up against the merest splinter, a possibility so small he should have bypassed it as he had a billion others. Perhaps it was the similarity to the memory he’d started from that made him pause, that made him look more closely. Perhaps it was something in the quality of that thread, the vaguely-glimpsed notion that this tiny path connected to other, distant branchings that seemed unusually strong ... For whatever reason, the way beckoned. And despite his exhaustion, Soundwave turned to follow it.

 _/Stent bent over him, muttering, bright-opticked and focussed as he so rarely was these days, multi-transformational hands spread into fast-shifting tools, the muffled data-spikes of armor opened, deep-coded fears suppressed as his internals were laid open, his docks, his spark chamber exposed open and bare --/_ A dizzying lurch, sensory data fragmented, flooding into _/a string of dusky images he didn’t understand, white fields and white sky, fear, shaking him to the core, too much data a universe of pure *noise*--/_ The branching narrowed still further, twisting in on itself in a malestrom of death/life/possibility. Then the odd impressions ended as quickly as they’d come--carefully avoiding that tangled knot, Soundwave watched as the thread’s branchings tracked the rest of the events he had seen in that other future, with Megatron, with the Decepticons. But this time ... instead of death, there was opportunity. And instead of schemes, true power. And down one sub-sub branch... the merest glimpse, nothing but a wisp: a vast shadowy congregation of sparks, of Chroniclers, all safe, all waiting...

Soundwave had already exceeded his limits, couldn’t explore as far or as thoroughly as he wished. But here, only here, was the promise and the possibility of a future.

Hurrying, a burgeoning hope building around his spark, processors aching, Soundwave traced his path back towards the safety of Ratbat’s present. Once there, he could slip back through the glideframe’s memories, to reach himself once more.

Soundwave paused only in order to study more carefully the defining moment, to commit to memory the instant when this thread broke away from the greater mass of probability. He hovered there, sorting through a morass of inconsequential events, until he located the fulcrum upon which this future turned.

It was not difficult to find. And as that moment opened before him, his spark went cold.

_/Standing over Parametric’s blasted corpse, loosening the broken hinges that swung the layers apart. Docks crumpling like foil in his talons, reaching into the ruined chassis. Disengaging a device as pale as a dead mech’s plating, untarnished, quietly cycling. Lifting it free--/_

The image was vivid, unmistakeable. The device was jagged, metal thorns pulling free from Parametric’s main cortex, thick with many-branched extrusions that had penetrated the heart of the mad carrier’s protoform, twining down to the spark chamber itself.

Dully shining, covered in Quintesson runes, it was the thing that had driven Parametric mad.

And it was their only hope of salvation.


End file.
